Aqua City
International Open Elective
Speculative Design | Product Design | Conceptual Design | Design Workshop
Year: 2017
Overview & Context Setting
The participants of the workshop travelled to the futuristic flooded city, where the water is gradually rising. Assuming that not all people would want, or be able, to leave for higher grounds, they were challenged to think about issues of mobility in a densely populated, flooded area.
Through watching many documentaries, case studies and movies paired with the real-time data of the present scenario a context was built through extrapolating the outcomes in the future.
Context: Kolkata
Out of many coastal cities, Kolkata was taken up as a use case. Kolkata is a city that has a river flowing through it and prone to flooding due to excessive rainfall and a rise in seawater levels. The screenshot of the map shown alongside shows the areas that get submerged in water and the extent in case of flooding.
10 Ft
16 Ft
20 Ft
Converting the above map data in an easily understandable diagram, covering various infrastructural elements and the extent of damage done with rising water.
The modes of transport- Personal and public are rated against different parameters and arranging the data to make meaning and narrowing down to a particular mode of transportation. From the data representation below, walking as a mode of transportation is selected for the solution outcome.
Conceptualisation
Wading through water will take huge amounts of effort and will not be a viable option for day-to-day transportation.
The solution can help one's mobility needs on water. In the future where the power cuts and the shortage of electricity will be a norm, a fuel-less mobility device will be preferred that would ease the transportation. A sustainable personal mobility channel proves to be of a great boon in the given context.
Concept Prototype- Mechanism
Water-Walker
Gaining a vague idea of the working of the Water- Walker, and further refinements, digital sketches were made with the help of physical understanding and ergonomics.
video simulation of the workshop deliverable in the context.
Aqua City