34,000 Tons of Miracles

HONOR AWARD

Jeong Won Kwang, Student Affiliate ASLA; Um Sung Hyun, Student Affiliate ASLA | Undergraduate | Pusan National University | Faculty Advisors: Lee Yoo Lick; Cho Jea Woo | Busan, South Korea

PROJECT STATEMENT

Dreadger and barges were once in great demand but they now degenerated one of troublesome things which spoil aesthetic landscape of a port city. This rusty 34,00 ton will make miracle for social, economic, environmental and recreational sustainability. The proposal also challenges the role of landscape architecture to link up between downtown areas and residential areas. This project as a flagship plays a pivotal role in the regional regeneration.

PROJECT NARRATIVE

PURPOSE:

The site is near the Busan harbor located in the city of Busan, South Korea, and geopolitically significant place to link-up two areas, downtown and residential areas. This harbor, well know for world trading port, has quite a attractive image with the dynamic port facility and natural sea. But now there are economic and environmental problems due to rusty barges and dredgers left in the long term in the temporary anchorage. With the lack of demand for dredge and rising oil price, ships at anchor is going to rust more and more and bonded warehouses, repair parts factories and small shipyards fell. The rusty components of vessels have been putting for a long time, everywhere, neighborhood street. This makes beautiful scenery of the Yeongdo-gu destroyed and spoiled.

An inner harbor embraced the site is rarely tidal current and rolling of the waves as a quiet sea. Many merchant vessels come and go constantly along the sea route. With the passing of time, sediment deposits slowly on the ocean bottom. The harbor should need to be dreged annually about 75,000 tons for safety, so that they are always 8-16 meters deep for large cargo ships that would pass through them.

The land use of Yeongdo-gu is divided into three use district such as exclusive-industrial district, general commercial district, and semi-industrial district. Most areas are packed with residence and edges of the area's shipyard. Open space and public park are few in this region. In addition, the great part of residence is time worn, reminiscent of 1980's to all who see it.

Three strategies use dredged sediment.

In order to keep an effective depth of water, the annual dredging requirement is about 75,000 tons. There are three proposals to use dredged soil purified via phytoremediation. First is seedling production. The nursery plants would be able to produce on the barge, based on the purified soil. If plants grow to intermediate trees, move on to another space and this green is spreading and fillinf from site to entire Yeongdo-gu. It will improve environmentally this region and even create green networks connecting the public park to open space. Second is crop production. The local residents produce it in the vegetable factory on the barge. There are rain water purification systems. Rain water is gathered from former bonded warehouse roof purify via water purification plant before operating hydroponics. When the local people make products, community appears and product provide for them, healthy food and profit from farm market. Third is making artificial beach as a waterfront space. Edge of the sea is front of the site is suitable to access water because the water is shallow. In order to make barge beach, unrecyclable barges and dredgers would be wrecked and take a role of sand catching works. As time goes on, the sand flows into the beach and get a barnacle to help catch the sand. Futhermore a sand from dredged sediment occasionallt serves to help create a unique beach. This waterfront gives marine life habitat to fauna and flora. It also provides a place to play recreational and leisure activity to the people. Go further, it will become tourist attractions. Three strategies mentioned above will bring social, economic, environmental and recreational sustainability to this region and the region's residents. This project 34,000 ton of miracle will play an important role in regional regeneration.

"Compelling example of taking something that’s an eyesore and creating something beautiful, useful, and productive. Concept of growing in those spaces and taking it deeper inland is interesting. Brings order and plants to chaos and trash. Very clever."

- 2014 Awards Jury