AIRICE Future Agriculture Cultural Tourism Town is a vision of future agriculture, based on 5G technology, big data, artificial intelligence, UAVs, and other front-end technical support. It is also an agriculture cultural tourism demonstration pilot that combines eco-tourism, industrial demonstrations, and technology model promotion. Therefore, at the beginning of accepting the commission to design the project, the concept of a “Future ALL” was proposed, that is, to reflect the futuristic in all links, which includes: Future Agriculture, Future Landscape & Future Life. It strives to show the impact of cutting-edge technologies on the world of material production.

Future Agriculture.There have been multiple iterations of intelligent agriculture. Various data are monitored through satellites; farmland is managed through displays remotely, and only a complex of automated agricultural machinery is working on the vast land. As more and more scenario applications are realized in practice, it has gradually separated human beings from the land and enabled agriculture to move toward a more unmanned productive environment in the future. The rural lifestyle and the landform have been greatly changed.

Future Landscape. If looking down on our planet from space, the history of human agricultural development is an image of the evolution of the surface landscape. In the past, traditional agricultural activities formed a type of surface landscape corresponding to their production methods, and thus, generated a lifestyle closely related to land production. With the emergence of modern agriculture, these landscape types have also undergone corresponding changes.

Efficient network transmission enables weather information and field data to be integrated by artificial intelligence in the cloud and fed back to the UAV. These production models that are gradually being realized will fashion a new type of agricultural landscape. Factors such as automatic irrigation, harvesting systems, and the working path of UAVs have transformed the traditional natural farmland texture into patterns composed of regular geometric figures such as straight lines, squares, circles, and sectors. This is the reason for the various geometric shapes in the general plan of the farm in the town.

Straight lines, concentric circles, and sectors—these different types of graphic combinations are produced in compliance with the new production method and have also become a display. In design and planning, the boundary of the intelligent farming display area is defined by setting up a tourist plank road, which defines the overall framework and segmentation of the plan. The demonstration of intelligent farmland technologies is carried out within the boundary.

Future Life: In the future, agricultural technology will enable faster and more efficient production, and the problem of food and clothing will no longer be the primary issue facing human society. On the contrary, the threat of senseless and uncontrolled production and consumption will be the dominant issue. The future of rural life should not only focus on the continuous technological production and material consumption but also the reshaping of the spiritual world, that is, the shaping of the “unknown.”

Therefore, at the site of automated material production, a series of constructions are placed on the key nodes of the main tour route. These simple shapes not only echo the geometry in the farm but also embody the function of visiting and resting sites and show an unknown power, a power beyond human reach.

Since humans began to use tools, this power has appeared in different forms, accompanied by ancient ritual totems; Stonehenge, located in the wilderness; the Circular Mound Altar of Heaven worship; and the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Human beings continue to expand the scope of their own cognition, as well as the scope of their unknown, but it is precisely because of the observation of the “unknown” that there are restraints on human desires, the continuation of life, and the exploration by moving forward.

To show awe in the face of the unknown power, the construction is presented in the form of “Sublime,” which emerges as the “Other” in the production site where people use science and technology as much as possible . Like the ceremonial platform from ancient times and the alien objects that travel through time and space, THEY have started a conversation with the unknown future and the present production world. To make it easier to present the “unknown” tone, the series construction will be numbered. For the construction, there are no names defined by semantics; even the interpretation in a few words is not entirely visually conveyed, but is more of an imagination of the unknown.

The square tablet concealed in the environment due to reflection
Dissolving the limits
Traversing the boundary
Forwarding to the other end

The suspended channel
Shows the volume gradually expanding upward from the beginning
Through the hint of ascending
The extended vision
The illusion of anti-gravity
The boundaries of imagination
It extends the existing entity
Into the endless and far-reaching space

Under the light and shadow of the central square tower
There are twelve circling mirrors
Forming the twelve gates of time
Propping up the veranda of samsara

The transitions of day and night
The changes in the four seasons
The growth and decline creatures
Within a diameter of 24 meters
There is the circulation to meet and part

The rain-catching pavillion
Answering the falling verse of the poem
With the environment meticulously protected
You can experience the poetry of making tea with rainwater

Rise and look up
There is a vast land
Stretching into the sky

Gathering in the country
Meeting on an airship floating in the field
HE will take people
Back to the childhood full of joy
Reap the already golden time.

From the beginning of the entrance gate, the regular tourist trail unfolds along the farmland pattern formed according to the automated production mode, extending and connecting a series of landscape nodes. The trail system and landscape nodes will be implemented in phases according to the overall plan. The scene presented by the aerial perspective is the completed part of the first phase, and the construction of subsequent content will be carried out according to the general plan. The design of the construction constitutes the initial design concept through the poetic idea of words and pictures, trying to explore the possible relationship between material production and consumption and the status of a spiritual core under the field of extreme technological production. These constructions reflect imagination about technology, the future, and the unknown.

The main entrance gate adopts a variable cross-section steel structure to form an upward-growing shape and a 30-meter-long visually closed pedestrian corridor letting the sunshine in . The intersection of the column and the diagrid rib constitutes a stable mechanical form.  As the main gate, its stretched appearance is strongly indicative, symbolizing the vigorous growth of all creatures in the prosperous season. When walking through it, the closed vision and the framed scene at the end are inwardly convergent, creating a sense of ritual of crossing and moving forward to the other end.

From the gap between the columns and the transverse ribs, fragments of the sky and the field can be seen. The upward structural sequence of variable cross-sections forms a rhythmic overlap of light and shadow. The protruding transverse ribs are narrowed enough to enhance the perspective and form a grouping of fine lines that extend to the sky. The ratio of the width of the columns to the spacing is exactly one to one. When walking through them, the vision can be completely confined between the two rows of columns, while the light on both sides can bleed out gently in the gap, and the view is guided to the beautiful distant scenery, leading viewers to move forward.

Differing from the local materials and construction methods used in the conventional rural projects, the design of this project has adopted “off-site” means. Through the use of modern industrial materials, a large number of highly reflective mirrored stainless steels, and with the floating sense of construction displayed by the hidden structure or cantilever, the poetry of the futuristic is presented.

The circular construction with a diameter of 24 meters is both a cloister and an altar, floating above the fields like something that has fallen from the sky. Through its concise form, it embodies the interpretation of multiple meanings that traverse the past and the present. With those elements, a sense of the seemingly known and the paradoxical “unknown” mystery is created. The twelve rotating mirrors hidden in the environment, like twelve “doors,” support the top of the cloister. The light and shadow of the square tower will follow the time change and fall into the mirror doors in different positions. Entering the cloister, the sky will be wrapped by the convergent space.  Through the reflection of stainless steel, the cubic construction blends into the environment, with blurred outlines and boundaries. Seemingly, it can make people pass through the prominent circular hole in the middle, traverse an invisible wall, and step into another space.

The mirror surface at the edge of the circular hole can create an artificial halo by reflecting the afterglow at sunset. The formation of the halo requires a specific season and a specific angle of incidence of sunlight. Through these deliberate settings, the various forces beyond reach are connected. In the wilderness of production, people have learned the technique of cultivating rice, but they can only wait patiently for the sun to fall into the circle, spilling onto the earth, and nourishing lives.

At the top of the pavilion is an inverted cone, which collects rainwater like a funnel onto a tea table with a smaller inverted cone on the ground. Three small uprights are anchored tangentially to the round edges, and the use of stainless steel conceals them, enabling the top of the funnel to appear to be “floating.” This design and setting contains the meaning of “appreciation.” Unlike most buildings, over here, rainwater is not “excluded” but held in the palm of the hand.  The stainless steel material on the top of the pavilion allows viewers to see the surrounding fields when they look up. Through the concrete form, the concept of “unknown” with abstract meaning is revealed and runs through the design of all nodes. Just like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it gave the narrative a key symbol, whereas regarding the specific meaning of such a symbol, perhaps even the director cannot fully understand it. Accordingly, design does not stop at the completion and presentation of specific forms, but may also be reflected in the gaze, touch, and imagination of the viewer.