Project by Meng-Syun Sung @woofwoooooooof
In Tulum, rapid tourism development has decimated purifying coastal mangroves. Drawn by employment, laborers are forced into informal settlements lacking reliable water and sanitation. Beneath the surface of this fragile karst landscape, a hidden “"gradient of contamination”“ reveals untreated wastewater infiltrating the porous limestone aquifer, ultimately causing coastal eutrophication and massive sargassum blooms.
My proposal, The Hydrological Metabolic Commons, introduces a reparative cycle of extraction and consumption. Overabundant sargassum is harvested, processed into bio-bricks, and continuously woven into the dynamic fabric of the informal built environment. New urban apparatuses are deployed to harvest rainwater and utilize anaerobic towers to digest blackwater. The resulting effluent nourishes mangrove nurseries. Once mature, these saplings are relocated to coastal and cenote observation stations for shoreline restoration. Through lightweight architectural interventions, this project seeks to mitigate the systemic socio-ecological crises facing both human and more-than-human inhabitants.
