10', 35', and 90': Multifunctional Landscape in the Compact Manufacturing Plant

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to find the opportunities of landscape intervention in the context of compact manufacturing plants. The pervasive globalization has witnessed the expansion of numerous industrial parks, so-called sweatshops, in underdeveloped regions. The impact towards the environment, social justice, and human well-being demands critical scrutiny. This project took the Pearl River Delta, a typical manufacturing heartland both domestic and worldwide, as a persuasive case. After multiple times of interactive field work in LongHua Foxconn, in Shenzhen, China, it has been discovered that the workers there do have opportunities to enrich their lives and access for recreation in the factory. It has been found that the worker’s time threshold could play a key role in the shaping of the access. Respectively, the first is 10 minutes before work or a brief break for smoking during working, the second one is 35 minutes after lunch, and the third one is 90 minutes after work. A testing area has been chosen to showcase the design intervention. For the 10-minute threshold, additional lightings and flowers are added alongside the road in working area, movable smoking houses are offered in the smoking area. For the 35-minute-threshold, a wooden seating-out area with canopy is placed in front of the canteen. The huge amounts of workers having lunch there will guarantee the adequate visit to this seating-out area. And this will act as a premise of the exploration of this recreation area and cultivate multiple purposes of usage. Some of the existing trees are also kept as shelter. Other latent possibilities also exist for the 35-minute-threshold. In the 90-minute term, the intervention can be a plaza or multi-functional open place near the dormitory, 60 cm wide and broad benches, which is long and soft, can be set there to provide a comfortable place for workers to take a brief rest. Soft pavement (e.g. rubber or grass) with bright color is implemented as an activator in the monotonous built environment with only decolorized concrete and steel. The variegated materials could ameliorate their mood and cultivate their emotions. At the same time, these time thresholds may overlap with each other, which also serves as an important aspect of the design intervention.