Dong-Ping Wong and other designers and architects imagine the future of sustainable ports

We’ve had an eco-heavy week here on It’s Nice That. Made Thought showed us that plastic-free supermarket aisles are both possible and beautiful, Futurice’s Alex Crowfoot gave us five simple ways to incorporate sustainability into everyday design practice, and we’ve even thought about buying one of those reusable coffee cups. We’ve not quite done it yet, but the thought is there.

In other environmentally friendly news, a not-for-profit initiative that, by 2020, aims to convince 20 of the world’s most influential port cities to adopt a completely digitized marine ecosystem by 2020 has been announced. What, you might be thinking, has got to do with It’s Nice That? Well, marine sector top dogs Wärtsilä’s An Oceanic Awakening project has been launched with a little help from major design and architecture heavyweights — Dong-Ping Wong, designer/founder of FOOD and Friends of + POOL, who has worked on projects for Kanye West and Nike — from around the world who’ve been asked to imagine what this safer, sustainable world would look like. More specifically, what safer, sustainable ports might look like.

Wärtsilä invited all of the designers, architects, city planners, and sustainability experts to a collaborative workshop in Hamburg, Germany in early August. They looked at examples of what has already been done to enliven each of their port and waterfront areas and then proceeded to develop a first mapping of themes and concepts to work with for the duration of the workshop.

The result is the batch of intriguing images – essentially the future (where we hopefully won’t find ourselves forced to wear a mask, snorkel, and set of flippers to work as the result of climate change-related water levels) looks a bit like Sim City – which isn’t a bad thing.