NCKU ventures into sustainable design with Floating Garden - Noodls
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) collaborates with Mizuiro Workshop to reveal a Floating Garden artwork on December 20 at the Boulevard Art Festival Tainan.
At NCKU it is both the Dutch Design Post (DDP) and the Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy (RCETS) who work to create a unique design with sustainable aspects.
The DDP invited designer Willem van Doorn from The Netherlands to collaborate with NCKU students in the creation of this artwork.
The Floating Garden project was initiated by DDP director Bart van Bueren, as he specializes in floating architecture himself. Mizuiro Workshop is client, but also supports in the local know-how and manpower.
The Floating Garden is more than just a pretty piece of green art on the water. It’s a statement to create awareness on how much waste people are making, and how much of the waste ends up in nature, harming animals and plants.
The artwork is composed out of foam blocks and plastic bottles that otherwise would pollute the water and streets in Tainan. With old fishing nets and bamboo these floating waste materials are bound together to become a floating raft for plants to grow on.
A group of Tainan volunteers and NCKU students followed Willem van Doorn into the harbors of oyster farms to pick up old poly-foam blocks, which were drifting in the water. “If the foam stays in the water for too long, it will degrade into a plastic soup that can last for hundreds of years. Fish mistake it as food and they can die from a full stomach of foam.”
“Eventually, even humans eat the foam, as they eat the fish,” says Bart van Bueren. “Now, instead the foam harming nature, we create a structure for nature to grown on! In this way plants will actually purify the water of Anping canal. The Floating Garden will attract more plants, fish and birds.”
As Waterarchitect and DDP director, Bart van Bueren, already build a 1000m2 floating building in the Netherlands, he turns his aim at Taiwan. “To get Taiwanese more familiar with the beauty of water and floating structures, I want to introduce this floating garden.”
The Netherlands already experienced floating gardens by the famous artist Jasper Grootveld (1932-2009). Willem van Doorn: “We are constructing this art work with a similar technology of recycling waste and binding it together with fishing nets. The gardens in Amsterdam by Jasper Grootveld have been growing already for two decades and have mature trees grown on them.”
“However, as we don’t want to wait so long for results, we also created a bamboo house on top of the raft foundation. Eventually the plants will quickly take over and cover the structure,” says Willem van Doorn.
Bart van Bueren is doing this project with support from the Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy (RCETS), as stepping stone to the creation of a sustainable floating house in the coming years. But it is also integrated in a NCKU Water Management course, where students explore floating wetland vegetation as tool to clean water and coastal protection.
Even another NCKU class is involved; the Dutch Design Course where students collaborate with Dutch Designers like Willem van Doorn and Bart van Bueren. Ruby Lee is one of the students closely working together with Willem van Doorn: “I’m learning so much by really making this large design, and it also involves a lot of communication between the client Mizuiro Workshop, fishermen, volunteers and others.”
From December 20, 2014 onwards the Floating Garden can be admired during the Boulevard Art Festival Tainan hosted by Mizuiro Workshop at the East tip of Anping Canal, No. 129 Huanhe Lane, Tainan (水色1214之間藝文空間 臺南水岸藝術節 台南市中西區環河街129巷).
Enditem/Alex van Egmond
At NCKU it is both the Dutch Design Post (DDP) and the Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy (RCETS) who work to create a unique design with sustainable aspects.
The DDP invited designer Willem van Doorn from The Netherlands to collaborate with NCKU students in the creation of this artwork.
The Floating Garden project was initiated by DDP director Bart van Bueren, as he specializes in floating architecture himself. Mizuiro Workshop is client, but also supports in the local know-how and manpower.
The Floating Garden is more than just a pretty piece of green art on the water. It’s a statement to create awareness on how much waste people are making, and how much of the waste ends up in nature, harming animals and plants.
The artwork is composed out of foam blocks and plastic bottles that otherwise would pollute the water and streets in Tainan. With old fishing nets and bamboo these floating waste materials are bound together to become a floating raft for plants to grow on.
A group of Tainan volunteers and NCKU students followed Willem van Doorn into the harbors of oyster farms to pick up old poly-foam blocks, which were drifting in the water. “If the foam stays in the water for too long, it will degrade into a plastic soup that can last for hundreds of years. Fish mistake it as food and they can die from a full stomach of foam.”
“Eventually, even humans eat the foam, as they eat the fish,” says Bart van Bueren. “Now, instead the foam harming nature, we create a structure for nature to grown on! In this way plants will actually purify the water of Anping canal. The Floating Garden will attract more plants, fish and birds.”
As Waterarchitect and DDP director, Bart van Bueren, already build a 1000m2 floating building in the Netherlands, he turns his aim at Taiwan. “To get Taiwanese more familiar with the beauty of water and floating structures, I want to introduce this floating garden.”
The Netherlands already experienced floating gardens by the famous artist Jasper Grootveld (1932-2009). Willem van Doorn: “We are constructing this art work with a similar technology of recycling waste and binding it together with fishing nets. The gardens in Amsterdam by Jasper Grootveld have been growing already for two decades and have mature trees grown on them.”
“However, as we don’t want to wait so long for results, we also created a bamboo house on top of the raft foundation. Eventually the plants will quickly take over and cover the structure,” says Willem van Doorn.
Bart van Bueren is doing this project with support from the Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy (RCETS), as stepping stone to the creation of a sustainable floating house in the coming years. But it is also integrated in a NCKU Water Management course, where students explore floating wetland vegetation as tool to clean water and coastal protection.
Even another NCKU class is involved; the Dutch Design Course where students collaborate with Dutch Designers like Willem van Doorn and Bart van Bueren. Ruby Lee is one of the students closely working together with Willem van Doorn: “I’m learning so much by really making this large design, and it also involves a lot of communication between the client Mizuiro Workshop, fishermen, volunteers and others.”
From December 20, 2014 onwards the Floating Garden can be admired during the Boulevard Art Festival Tainan hosted by Mizuiro Workshop at the East tip of Anping Canal, No. 129 Huanhe Lane, Tainan (水色1214之間藝文空間 臺南水岸藝術節 台南市中西區環河街129巷).
Enditem/Alex van Egmond
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