Nature Seasoning
Design technologies that help future urbanizers overcome cravings for nature
Duration
2 Weeks
June 2020
Project Feature
Speculative Design
Food Design
Prototyping and Modelling
My Role
Research & Strategy Lead
Concept and Story Design
Prototyping
Team
Yixi Liu Jiyu Xuan Xiye Chen
INTRO — A speculative project to provoke discussions around climate change and industrialism
In face of challenges such as climate disruptions and overpopulation, the technologically-driven food industry is booming in recent years as promising solutions to simulate and design entirely new closed-loop ecosystems for food production. The idea is to merge science disciplines to build indoor growing systems that could overcome natural limiting factors. 3D printed food, cellular agriculture, vertical farms, algae-based new food… you name it.
On the other hand, the worldwide environmental issues remain largely unsolved, carbon emissions not curbed, and climate change remains a controversial topic.
This project envisions a future in which natural resources are depleted as a result of climate disruption, and only artificial food is possible to feed the planet. Will humans be satisfied with the “sustenance” - replacement of genuine food that industrial advancement made possible?
Our answer is no. We speculate that the future urbanizers will develop nostalgic feelings for the past and undamaged natural environment - the good old days when they could still enjoy fresh, naturally grown food.
Final Design
A set of future “seasonings” and “tablewares” that return artificially-made food to its natural state (or replicate the imprints/marks of nature/ recreate the natural cycle of “birth and decay)
The products all feature a “de-industrialization” process that brings back bittersweet memories of a better ecological period. This emotion would serve as a motivator for ecological restoration in a post-modern society.
How we got there?
1 — Exploration
Identify 'signals' of emerging technologies and trends
To start, we looked up current trends and signals of emerging technologies and culture in the world, and picked the ones most relevant to the food industry. This step helps us to have an initial understanding of the problem space and helps to inspire our next step.
Predicting Future trends
Given the current trends and signals related to our topic of research, we conducted analysis and summarized the major trends in the world for shaping the worldview of our project and future design decisions.
Creating Future Wheel
If extreme cold weathers become the norm in the future, what will happen to people and society? We created a future wheel, first proposed by Jerome C. Glenn in 1977, to help us map out all the possibilities. This step helps us complete the world view and contexts for our design.
2 — Speculating the future world
Our World — the Collapsed Mother Nature, Indoor Living, and Artificial Food
Due to global warming, extreme cold weathers hit Northern Hampshire at an unprecedented level of intensity and frequency. As the ecosystems collapse, humans move indoors and struggle to sustain a livable environment through cutting-edge technology.
Artificially-manufactured fruits, vegetables, and meat become the norms
“Nature” becomes a past-term.
The Food Culture — Urbanite Nostalgic for the Natural World
Due to limited space and resources, all food is mass-produced in factories and later distributed to the market and households. The highly-standardized food consists of the nutritions and taste that are the same in traditional meat and fruits.
However, the future urbanizers are seduced by nature. Though bio-engineered food feeds the crowd, nostalgic feelings for the taste-and-feel of “nature” become trendy. People’s vision of “good food” shifts from a consideration of its nutrients and taste to the level of its “naturalness/genuity.”
Inspirations:
Movie - “Soylent Green”
Soylent Green is a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller film. It portrays a world in which natural resources are depleted due to the cumulative effects of climate catastrophe, environmental pollution and overpopulation. The Soylent Industries produces artificially-produced food, but the products are in short supply. The character Sol Roth decides to end his life through euthanasia - he can watch sequence of film clips that show the earth as it was long ago — forests, wild animals, rivers and ocean life, before death.
3 — Ideate and Prototype
During the making process, I am mainly responsible for creating the prototypes of the fruit and the vegetables.
