Zheng Zhang

Zheng Zhang featured image

About

Zheng Zhang is a designer. Prior to joining the MA Environmental Architecture program at the RCA, she graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts with Public Art in 2021.

In her designs, she emphasizes the connection between people, nature, architecture, and culture within space.  She approaches the challenge of achieving coexistence among these various elements with a systematic mindset, establishing effective communication between people and the environment within the project and aims to alleviate contradictions and conflicts between these elements.

Contact

Degree Details

Statement

More than a Point aims to study the environmental impact of wind farms on the island of Euboeavia and is based on ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΣΕΩΣ Απόφαση 49828/2008 (GAZETTE OF THE GOVERNMENT Decision 49828/2008) By drawing through the real dimensions and entangled networks of the wind turbine, we can explore spatial and material impacts of this one component of renewable energy infrastructures and planning. While Southern Euboea is home to many wind turbines, their impact is multi-dimensional and reaches much farther than their immediate surroundings.The unseen impacts of wind turbines is, in fact, much wider than the impact of their physical size and materiality. Drawn on maps as single points, the actual body of the turbine and its consequences is unaccounted for in planning and development schemes, giving the incorrect impression that a turbine can exist in a forest, or village, or protected area without environmental harm.

The aim of the project is not to discourage the development of wind energy, but to encourage us all to rethink their environmental impact and to plan accordingly. We have chosen to work with newsprint media because of its history as an ‘underground’ media and for ease of distribution and flexibility of form.

Wind turbine we saw in Euboea

Sorth Euboea, 27 October 2022, Xuan Lin.
Sorth Euboea, 27 October 2022, Xuan Lin.
Sorth Euboea, 27 October 2022, Nishan Zhong.
Sorth Euboea, 27 October 2022, Zheng Zhang.
Sorth Euboea, 27 October 2022, Yuxi Cheng.

Zooming

Thinking with Charles and Ray Eames’ “Powers of Ten (1977), this video is meant to challenge the way wind turbines are typically symbolised cartographically and, therefore, positioned in policy and regulatory discussions. By taking a telescopic view of the turbine in space, we can see that the turbine is never a dot, but an entanglement of visible and invisible connections both material and immaterial.

ΕΦΗΜΕΡΙΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΣΕΩΣ Απόφαση 49828/2008 (GAZETTE OF THE GOVERNMENT Decision 49828/2008)

Legal restrictions on sustainable spatial planning for wind turbines (RES) in Greece

Newsprint

As a paper medium, holding a newspaper, flipping through its pages, and engaging with the content can be a more focused and purposeful activity. We utilize the newspaper format to strengthen readers' connection with pictures and text materials and promote deeper engagement. As a physical reading tool with a long history, newspapers can keep individuals informed even when access to other resources is limited; newsprint can also have many formats and occupy space at different scales. For example, the unfolded newsprint can also operate as a poster and wall covering.

Using AR, readers and/or viewers can also populate their immediate environments with a true-to-life scale wind turbine; thus, challenging the dot by bringing the turbine into someone’s living room, a cafe, an urban street or park creating uncomfortable relations with these machines.