"Technature" wins Honorable mention at "Designing Resilience in Asia"

The organization DRIA 2015 was presented and hosted by the National University of Singapore

and encouraged students from ten universities all over the world to take chance on improve life of

people in endangered regions in Asia. During the designing process one learned about different

well working projects, one got to know people who are in the topic and can tell a lot about it and of

course one learned which strategies are smart and helpful. The decision if top down or bottom up

solutions did not matter.

In 2015 the point of attention was a small fisher village near Haikou on the island of Hainan in

South China. Xinxinggang lies partly only 1.8 m above the average tight level and due to tsunamis

and heavy storms during the monsune period the inhabitants have to deal with destruction of

infrastructure, boats and buildings about twice a year. Due to the lack of infrastructure such as firm

roads, sewage and garbage treatment the impacts of hazards are more difficult to handle and in

addition the people have no second income source to compensate the non-productive when the

boats are broken. The straightened river at the back of the city endangers the fisher, too, because

it leads the high tide from the back into the village even if the front would be protected.

The discovered problems we wanted to deal with were therefore first: the lack of alternative income

sources, second: the lack of infrastructure, third: the vulnerability to flood during and after the hazard, forth: the unadapted houses of the fisher.

“Technature” is a design approach using low tech measures to stir environmental diversity. The

proposal regards the fisher village as a conceptual nucleus that needs an invigorated membrane.

Xinxinggang is regarded as the core, from which the communal heart beat spreads its vibrant pulse

to the surrounding body of nature. In this social-ecological system buffer zones are conceptualized

to shield the raw vulnerable community.

Within 3 phases we turn the village bit by bit into a resilient one that functions as good example for

all the other small villages along the coast.