- Systemic changes
For decades, the rapidly-growing tourism industry has struggled to reduce its undesired impacts through alternative operational models, or greenwashed old ones. Hit by the current crises, it is now fighting for its life and needs radical change.
Meanwhile, other un(der)used infrastructures have been temporarily repurposed to serve urgent needs. Inspired by this phenomenon, we envision repurposing tourism infrastructures for planetary healing.
We do so by co-creating a systems thinking framework with diverse stakeholders. Within this framework, we revisit historical ways of traveling and resting, investigate popular desires, and redefine the meaning and service of existing infrastructure. These, in turn, cultivate speculative designs, prototypes, and campaigns that could disseminate visions of tourism’s potential to heal.
Before going back to ‘normal’ we wish to reshape imaginations - the driving force behind travel - and redirect them towards diverse and regenerative futures.
During lockdowns, 60% of the global commercial aircraft were grounded. Some were parked in airports while others were sent to desert boneyards, where airplanes go to die. "Deserted Planes" was Non Voyage's first speculative design project. It proposes to occupy these waiting infrastructures as an experimental resort, researching models of self-sufficiency and distributed urbanism.
Our pilot discursive event in the historic Tempelhof airport terminal as part of Torhaus Berlin's residency program for the Living The City exhibition.
Sightmaking is a public workshop where we prototype alternative usages for tourism infrastructure. It pairs the desire for sightseeing with the spirit of placemaking.
