Satellite
2024
Satellite is an immersive digital tool combining climate scenario visualisation with live research, designed to explore the future implications of environmental data
Project Focus
– Narrative articulation
Concept
Satellite is a digitally immersive environment that renders climate change perceptible through spatial narrative. Structured as an interactive terrain, the project invites users to explore a remote and otherwise unreachable landscape—one that evolves in real time in response to global climate data. By cycling through past, present, and speculative futures, Satellite transforms scientific models into lived experience.
At its core, the project poses a fundamental question: how can we make environmental transformation more graspable—less abstract and more immediate—through digital design?
Contextual Insights
Centred around the Greenland ice sheet, Satellite visualises one of the planet’s most consequential geophysical regions. This vast reflective surface, vital to global temperature regulation via the albedo effect, is undergoing rapid transformation. As Arctic temperatures rise at twice the global average, Greenland’s shifting topography serves as both subject and signal of broader ecological change.
Despite growing awareness, climate change remains difficult to internalise. Traditional media often resorts to urgent framings, which can overwhelm or alienate. Satellite responds by presenting climate data not as alarm but as environment—allowing users to witness change through interaction rather than exposition.
Design Approach
Developed independently, Satellite integrates interaction design, real-world climate metrics, and immersive digital storytelling. The visual terrain is rendered through CGI, providing a rich yet restrained landscape that responds dynamically to data inputs. The user interface follows a minimalist and functional aesthetic—carefully balanced to support navigation without drawing focus away from the environment itself.
The UI design prioritises legibility, subtlety, and spatial harmony. Dashboard analytics and real-time updates are seamlessly embedded, allowing users to explore without interruption. Every design decision supports clarity, engagement, and intuitive movement through the virtual terrain.
End Note
Satellite offers an alternative approach to environmental communication—one that prioritises interaction over instruction, immersion over overload. By situating users within a landscape shaped by live climate data, it fosters curiosity and personal connection to planetary change.
As a self-initiated project, it also demonstrates the potential of interface design to distil complex systems into accessible, affective experiences. Satellite sits at the intersection of data visualisation, environmental design, and speculative storytelling—proposing a more nuanced, user-centred way to engage with the climate crisis.