PROBLEM：
Researchers David Nowak and Eric Greenfield of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, “Tree cover in 17 of the 20 analyzed cities had statistically significant declines in tree cover, while 16 cities had statistically significant increases in impervious cover. … City tree cover was reduced, on average, by about 0.27 percent/yr, while impervious surfaces increased at an average rate of about 0.31 percent/yr.”
What if we can make a park portable? How can we acknowledge people about the significance of the forest and trees?
INTERVENTIONS：
Hypothesis:
If we make parks portable, people can interact with nature closely and realize how important trees are in our life.
I. Sketches
II. Lego Phase 1
III. Lego Phase 2
IV. Design
Portable Green contains majorly two parts, portable parks and portable zoos. When they are in transportation, they can be folded into containers. When they arrive at destinations, the four/six sides of the containers can open and offer public spaces for people. The bottom of a container is a massive flowerbed, where trees are planted and the flowerbed can use recycled E-waste compost according to Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (Liz Eve). To avoid loss of soil when the park folds, the public space sides will use recycled artificial grass to achieve the goal. The portable zoo is a relatively small container. This project should cooperate with certain animal relief organizations to keep it running and inform people about the significance of these treasured creatures. Since they are definitely heavy containers, they have to be carried by a truck. People may question that trucks are not sustainable and eco-friendly and their exhaust may hurts the plants. This project suddenly loses its meaning. However, s company named VIA Motors came out with an electric truck. The truck can travel 40-50 miles without burning any gas and this can satisfy the need for carrying the containers.
GOAL
The goal of this project is to remind people about how important trees are in our world. We cannot afford the price of keeping losing trees in cities. I consider Portable Green as a set of interactive installation art. People can actually go on to the space to interact with nature again. Yes, we have giant parks like the Central Park, but people nowadays spend more and more time in this cold concrete forest. We breath vehicle exhaust and hardly have opportunity to feel the nature. By designing Portable Green, I want people to have a chance to read a book under the tree shadow in a building’s lobby, a skateboard park, a urban square (like Madison Square Garden) or even in the streets.
SYSTEM AND FEEDBACK LOOP
WHAT IF…
