Oasis merges mobility with social, economic and environmentally sustainable tourism for the Zhangjiajie Nation Forest in Hunan Province, China. A network of air-borne vehicles including air-yachts, massive air-cruise ships, floating air-islands, and air-taxis shuttling tourists between all of them provides tourists a once in a lifetime experience of drifting through this serene and surreal landscape. Every detail of these airships is elegantly considered from equally pragmatic and aesthetic perspectives. Aspects such as furniture, floors, and framing which normally add weight are replaced by inflatable structures that actually add buoyancy as well as allow for adaptive reuse of limited interior space. Thus achieving a level of luxury with a fraction of the space, weight and energy resources.
In the Research + Concept phase students adopt a cyclical pattern of formulating questions and simultaneously attempting to answer them through investigation, experimentation and insight formation. As this pattern is continually repeated and refined, conceptual opportunities are identified and defined into formal concept statements and actionable design criteria.
In the Development phase students explore, experiment, ideate, iterate, test and evaluate a variety of thematic innovations and executions (both functional and aesthetic) in a variety of processes including 2D, 3D, and 4D sketching, sketch-modeling, sketch-rendering, and animated prototyping. This process, often non-linear and again cyclical, is used to determine viable design directions which most appropriately address the conceptual intent
In the Finalization & Presentation phase students are tasked to continually narrow and hone their development process of a single design direction towards final design refinement. Here all aspects of the design (conceptual, functional, aesthetic) are resolved and refined in detail to the highest degree of sophistication and craft. Final design solutions are then optimally showcased in the creation of highly detailed 3D models, rendered images/posters, and video animations – all of which highlights final design execution and storytelling of conceptual intent.
