Ásta María Þorsteinsdóttir, Cedric Hietbrink, Manasse Heijkoop and Kristen Delis
Imagine 100 years from now, how will our world look like? This is a question we would like to pose for the port of Rotterdam regarding the oil dependencies. Right now we live in a world that is still very much dependent on oil which is visible at the port. Everywhere you look in the port you will see (in)direct references to oil. One of the most evident marks of our oil dependency are the oil tanks placed throughout the port area. With the world in transition to more sustainable solutions we think that oil will become less important in the future. So in 100 years from now when we will be less dependent on oil what will happen with the oil heritage and in specific with the oil tanks?
Oil has played an important part in history and still is. To remove the oil tanks would be to remove part of our heritage. So we propose to transform and repurpose the tanks. This guide is designed in order to help future designers transform oil tanks. We came up with four different categories that are important to keep in mind when transforming an oil tank. The categories are conditions, urban, pollution and space & structure. These categories are what form the CUPSS guide. For each category we name different problems or subjects which designers need to take into account and the guide provides some solutions which might be applied.
For each category you can find different diagrams illustrating conceptual solutions. We chose to keep it conceptual to not limit the design options for designers. With this guide we want to make designers aware of the hurdles with transforming former oil tanks as well as the challenges connected to designing in a port area. In order to inspire people we have provided images at the end of the booklet that incorporate the idea’s posed by the guide. With this guide we hope to help people to make transforming oil tanks easier so that no heritage will be lost.
