Rain Wu

‘Brighter and cleaner... free from moth and rust and full of colour... built up of synthetic materials in which man, like a magician, makes what he wants for almost every need.’ (Victor Emmanuel Yarsley, OBE, British Chemist, 1946)

'It is the very properties that make plastic so useful, their stability and resistance to degradation that causes them to be so problematic after they have served their purpose.’ (Greenpeace, 2010)

Plastic is a past paradise: once being described as the material of the future and enabling a revolutionary joy of Throwaway Lifestyle, plastic has now come back to haunt us.

The production and the consumption of plastic has been on steady increase since the Second World War, our lives are proven to be inseparable from objects made from them. The UK aims to reach the zero to landfill target but the flow of waste plastic output to China has recently been closed due to reinforced regulations.

The project explores the potential of over-consumption of plastic by turning the accumulating plastic waste into useful amenity for a regeneration housing scheme in Purfleet.

The versatile properties of plastic waste such as light-weight, abundant, cheap, waterproof, resistant, and long life span, are explored in the design.

The island’s synthetic landscape is carefully organised with elements from a catalogue of plastic plants, plastic trees, plastic houses, plastic infrastructure and plastic geology, to form a fantastical other world. But look around you, is it that far from reality?