THE PERFORMATIVE UNITRethinking Hawaiian ecological productive urbanismHe’eia,Oahu, Hawaii
The project investigates the relationship between the alimentary, architecture and urbanism. Investigating a sustainable and self-sufficient agricultural production in Hawai’i. Despite that Hawai’i is the only state with a year round growing season in the event of a major disruption that affect air and marine cargo. It only has 10 days of food reserve. Thus food security is of prime importance especially in such remote context. By analyzing the traditional land resource management and agricultural system” The Ahupua’a” which encompasses a vertical space that extends from ocean to mountain, corresponding to various ecological elements within the transect through an organization of land habitation and cultivation. Thus it transforms the watershed into an intensive technology for food production. Prior to the European contact in 1778, these systems were fully functional and sustained an estimated population of 800,000 . However, currently only some artifacts of this system remain partially intact and functional. Pond fields ( Lo’i), fishponds(loko), and dry land terraces ( Kuaiwi) are dispersed across each island. Due to the increasing demands for urbanization on one hand and the pressing need to address food security. Hence the project investigates how urbanization and the various modes of food and resource production could be synchronized in correspondence with the environmental conditions of the ocean-basin watershed.