The territory of Pearl River Delta has been transformed into a landscape machine for globalized seafood production. Meanwhile, relentless urbanization has been deployed over the territory without any evidence of how the relationship between the region’s urbanization and its aquacultural landscapes may be organized. This tension between urbanization and industrialization of landscape raises questions as to how landscape architects can design a new form of public realm in this hyper-dense mixture of massive urbanization and vernacular landscape. “Can we design a new model of public realm generating vibrant interfaces across dynamic and fragile urban conditions?”

Traversal Landscape imagines projecting public realms across the Pearl River Delta’s urban environment and aquacultural landscape. The ambition is to leverage the fragmented, and mosaic urban conditions to set a relation between urban infrastructures and the temporal and mobile cultural practices which shape the Pearl River Delta’s lifestyles. “What if we speculate to develop mobile landscapes catalyzing cultural practices and public life acting like a parasite activating all over the territories as an alternative form of public realm?” The project aims to design traversal platforms which can be deployed across the site’s territories for opportunistic and flexible public uses - a model that synergizes a temporal mode of vernacular as well as urbanized lifestyle. It mobilizes the idea of a “typical” public realm as a constellation of individuality that may culminate into a model for a new shared territorial lifestyle.

Canals, Rivers and the sea is spine infrastructure for framing rural development and landscapes. Platforms navigate along the canal activating small scales of public activities such as floating cafe and restaurants. They can be formalized to connect as bridge to make an interface between fish ponds and residential areas. The interfaces can be acting like a parasite for any urban areas along the narrow canals catalyzing diverse cultural activities and local economies here. What if these parasitic floating spaces can drive a new way of rural development? What if these convert existing system which is organized brutally without any consideration of landscape and public life into more vibrant and porous ways? Simply one can begin to imagine that this can alter the building facade or small scale of infrastructure using for public spaces.

Many of different agencies, developments, agricultural and aquacultural practices are sweeping away the territories. Even in this context, there are some of existing form of floating public life on the sea. What if this sort of maritime culture can be intervened with placing simple platform configuration? How can these platforms navigate beyond existing form of commonality? From a simple intervention, they can bring a new way of public vibrancy on the sea as floating tiny form of economy. As with other designs on other sites, it is possible to speculate that their fixation can be evolved into floating villages, the archipelago of the floating cultures.