Yanglan Wang
A Blue Blender
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Project description
A Blue Blender: Building Interdependence between Humans and the Sea
A Blue Blender explores the spatial conflict between humans and the sea, a conclusion drawn from research into coastal margins around the Moray Firth. In Alness, Scotland, this conflict is embodied by Dalmore Distillery which is at risk from rising sea levels. Informed by the Blue Humanities and ‘A More Than Human Manifesto’. The project challenges extractive human attitudes towards the sea and considers the sea as an agent with equal rights to humans.
To adapt, the distillery will be relocated and gin production introduced as a transitional strategy while whisky production recovers. Rising sea levels are also embraced as an opportunity to cultivate halophytes in repurposed parts of the old distillery and used as botanical flavor sources for gin. The project proposes Alness as an experimental community shaped by seawater, blending ecological adaptation, productive transformation, and spatial redesign to reimagine a future of interdependence between humans and the sea.
Through making the self-portraits of the sea and combining them with other landscape textures, a conflicting relationship between humans and the sea in the Moray Firth is reveiled.
The Selected Coastal Margins in the Moray Firth
1 The ideal home — Loch Fleet
2 The transition-1 — Littleferry
3 The wind — Nairn
4 On the cliff — Nigg
5 The transition-2 — Dornoch
6 The coming crisis — Golspie
7 The contradictory boundary — Cromarty
8 Colonizing the sea — Invergordon
In the coastal area of Alness (is located in the Cromarty Firth within the Moray Firth), Dalmore is a representative place of this conflicting relationship. The Dalmore Distillery here is going to be effected.
The distillery will radually be relocated to Dalmore Farm and the products will be changed to explore the experimental community model of Dalmore in the future to cope with climate change.
The Relocation of the Distillery is Divided into Three Stages
Dalmore Distillery will become the space that sea blends the coastal margin. The rise of seawater allows halothypes to become a stable source of gin flavor, and also makes the coastal margin of Dalmore a resilient assemblage with a stable ecosystem. This margin mediates the spatial conflict between the sea and humans, transforming it into a assemblage of interdependence between humans and the sea.
After the distillery is relocated, most of the above-ground buildings will be demolished. The sandstones used in the original building will be reused as materials for the halophytes cultivation facilities. The remaining concrete foundation will be reused as the foundation of the walkway.
The Detailed Design of the Walkway
A-A' Section of the Walkway
Top: The Present Coastal Paths Bottom: The Coastal Path in 2150
The ground part of some buildings on the west side of the distillery will be demolished, and the remaining concrete foundation will be transformed into a planting pond for growing halophytes. These halophytes will be used as the flavor source of the sea flavored gin produced by Dalmore Distillery.
The Detailed Design of Halophytes Planting Pond
The Halophytes Planting Pond
The Juniper Plantation
Yanglan Wang
A Blue Blender
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