NeoAtlantis is a speculative design that reimagine the traditional concepts of urban living, in response to the challenges posed by rising sea level caused by climate change. Through immersive experience and live performance, this project challenges the conventional notion of urban planning and prompts the audiences to think of the future implication of global warming.
Human activities have contributed to global warming, leading to rising sea levels due to thermal expansion and melting ice. The tiny increase can have harmful consequences for coastal habitat, which has already experienced erosion, soil contamination, and loss of biodiversity. The recent alarming incidents of coastal flooding have prompted society to contemplate the possibility of water encroaching on land, forcing humans to adapt to an underwater lifestyle.
I sketched the map to reflect the city-planning, and laid the ground for our exhibition. In year 5000, NeoAtlantis is an underwater city that once a coastal village of Southern Vietnam. Instead of portraying a bleak future, the city is lively and positive, and people are striving to promote science tourism to raise awareness for environment conservation. Both semi-permanent and permanent residents live in the city. Permanent resident dwell in the dome houses that supply air, whereas tourists live in the cave hotel. The citizens have a wide variety of arts and entertainments, like sculpting, dolphin racing, and plays at the amphitheaters. NeoAtlantis welcome tourists to visit the new urban planning and promote science tourism.
After the world building, we decided to focus on creating a visitor center, because science tourism is what we want to promote. On the exhibition day, our audience will be the visitor who will be greeted by us and learn about the city. I sketched and crafted props that fit into the narration. To make the experience more immersive, our group want to use ocean soundscape and wave projector to mimic the underwater environment.
I developed the script for three roles during the exhibition - tour guide, front-desk receptionist, and food vendor. Tour guide hands out wristband for identity, explain the city through map, and introduce the food stand. The food vendor introduce the agriculture and food process at NeoAtlantis, and invite tourists to try out the food samples. Lastly, the receptionist hand out welcome package, souvenirs, and assign hotel rooms.
To make the sketched map in 3D, I crafted the the monuments and architectures using fabrication tools. I modeled the museum and amphitheater to fit into the scale of the map, and 3D-printed them out. For the racing field and circus, I used corrugated board to make the round edges. The rest of the props are mostly made out from origami and papier-mâché.
After the exhibition, I self-initiated a VR project to archive the experience by bringing the physical objects into a virtual world. I constructed the scene of the welcome center in Unity. The virtual experience is composed on three parts, the map, reception desk, and the food cart. The participants can explore the welcome center by themselves. In the future, I am planning to add interaction to the experience, like being handed the identity bracelets, taste sushi, or communicate via jellyfish hologram.
