SCROUNGE is centered around my fictional character called Scrounge. Through writing his story, I designed and built a suit using his narrative to guide the constraints and functions of each piece. The entire suit is made from scavenged, discarded outdoor gear, repurposed into something functional within his world.
I’ve decided to use this website as a place to share the short story that helped bring this character and his equipment to life. If you’re interested in learning more about the process on how I designed and developed the pieces, feel free to check out my personal portfolio website: Josekuri.com
The storm was finally over.
It had been a week since the wall of rain began pouring into the rubble, seeping through the nooks and fractures of the destroyed concrete landscape. Now the water had finally given up. Moss, vines, algae, trees, and leaves sprang back to life with a rich green tone that gave life to this otherwise grey city.
As the sun rose, covering the sky and painting the tops of buildings with the color of a runny egg yolk, it was time for Scrounge to begin his harvest.
His temporary campsite was located on the twelfth floor of a bare structure that was once a skyscraper. Cracked pillars, exposed rebar, and a complete lack of windows surrounded him. At this height, he was safe from most surrounding dangers.
He looked out across the skyline where collapsed buildings formed harsh, jagged mountains. The structures that still stood rose as concrete skeletons up to the tenth floor, marking the highest point reached by the tide during the great flood over a century ago.
The water levels eventually receded, but the city never recovered. The tide still reached the first and second floors seasonally, forcing humans to move toward higher elevations. In doing so, treasures of the old world were left behind in dangerous, abandoned cities. For Scrounge, this was an opportunity. So many untouched resources.
The day began simply. He ate a small meal of fish jerky prepared over the fire. His quick-deploy shelter was deconstructed and neatly stowed in his pack as he left, without a trace. He packed up what had been his home for the past week and eagerly rappelled off the building to begin his search.
His kit was light. Every piece had clearly earned its place. Constructed from drybags and various scraps he had found over the course of many scavenging runs, his pack had finally been perfected. Over the course of his adventures, many past bags had failed him so severely that he had been forced to return empty-handed. But not this one. After countless iterations and runs, he had finally honed his design.
Constructed with a watertight zipper running diagonally across the front, it allowed for easy deployment and access to its contents at a moment’s notice. Both his survival equipment and harvested materials would live inside this bag. Due to the unpredictable weather conditions and the constant threat of floods, the pack was also equipped to function as an emergency flotation device.
The comfortable strap system, tailored to his measurements, allowed Scrounge to wear it for hours on end.
As he swung back into the building to pull his rope for the final descent, it stopped short. He peered over the edge and spotted a small piece of rebar gripping the rope just past its midpoint.
He tugged. Nothing. Another pull. Still nothing. The rope did not budge. The only way to free it was from two floors above.
He leaned into the service stairwell and saw only fragments of where the stairs once were, with a wide hole piercing straight through each floor of the building. At the bottom lay a pile of concrete rubble. Looking up, he could see the doorway to the floor where his rope was caught. Close enough to tempt him but far enough to be a problem.
Scrounge took a deep breath, calculating his next move. Knowing this environment’s harsh conditions, he had come prepared. He removed his pack for lighter movement and studied the wall where the stairs once spiraled. Subtle features revealed themselves to his trained eye. Old anchor points, cracks shaped by time, and lots of water. He pulled off his gloves and began climbing.
His integrated harness allowed him to tether quickly to remaining rebar loops when it made sense. He used them sparingly. He was not particularly worried about slipping; his real concern was the concrete itself. Brittle and unpredictable, ready to chip without warning beneath his feet.
After a slow climb, he reached the window and freed the rope. He set up the rappel, which now reached the ground, lowered himself to retrieve his gear, and finally touched down at street level.
Now the harvest could finally begin.
Rainwater poured through cracks in the city, forming streams and temporary waterfalls that pushed hidden or buried treasure back onto the surface. Scrounge had to move quickly before the streams swept them away down the avenues and into the main river carved out of eroded asphalt.
He had recently received a tip that a fellow scavenger in search of different scraps had stumbled upon what seemed to be an old warehouse. There, he had found a tarp. Bright blue, Ripstop. That was enough to pique Scrounge’s interest. The friendly scavenger had set up a small banner outside of the store made with that exact tarp to help Scrounge find it, but the challenge of traversing this rugged city still stood.
He began heading westward along the main river, picking up any scraps he could find before they fell into the stream as he went. Buckles on trashed bags, metal zippers, or bits of rope. These small details gave his gear character, so he made sure to harvest them all. With his toolkit, he could quickly cut off any valuable hardware and store it in his notions pocket right on his chest. As he continued venturing, he made out a small blue triangle in the distance waving in the wind.
“Ripstop,” he mumbled in excitement under his breath.
It all seemed so simple, at least for a moment. As he got closer to the banner, the roaring water grew louder. As the building finally came into view, so did the white water gnawing at the banks, growing larger by the second. Crossing this river would be no easy feat. He looked around for any ropes, bridges, or even rafts he could use to cross the white waters, but the markings of every previous explorer’s path had been eroded away.
Luckily, he had a small trick up his sleeve. As he walked upstream, he removed his pack’s shoulder straps, loosened his hip strap, and rotated the pack to rest on the front of his body. His design made the bag airtight , working as an emergency flotation device. He continued walking until the building with the banner was positioned diagonally across the river downstream.
He took one deep breath and jumped. The waters began swirling him around, but the bag kept him afloat. He kicked, paddled and struggled his way across the white water. As the blue tarp came into view, so did the bank he was aiming for. He safely made it to the other side. Soaked but alive.
Scrounge could hear the faint rippling and fluttering of the tarp tugging in the wind, it was hidden beneath the roaring of the river, but it gave him a sense of calm. He eagerly skipped along into the building in search of the tarps and other goods, only to be met with a colossal warehouse. All ground level entrances were permanently sealed with rust and debris so he climbed up the side to find a small nook where he could enter. Mountains of items of all kinds crawled up the walls, trying to escape the building when the floods would come in, but somehow the structure seemed intact.
He took a moment to look around, deciding where to begin. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an obnoxiously neon selection of bright pinks and greens. The material composition was what truly mattered to him. This bundle of old bags and jackets seemingly stuck in a metal cage that kept them safe from the tide, had just become a true jackpot.
He scrambled over a mound of water-logged debris to reach the rusted enclosure. Inside, preserved by the height of the shelf, sat the collection. He pulled a neon-pink windbreaker from the cage. The fabric squeaked as it rubbed against itself, still usable. Beside it lay some heavy-duty hiking packs in a green so bright it made his eyes ache.
Scrounge didn’t waste a second. He deployed his pack, laying it flat on a dry patch of concrete. The diagonal zipper slid open with a satisfying whirr, and he began his work. He stripped the high grade buckles and tension locks, tucking them into the notions pocket on his chest. He then carefully cut away large panels of the ripstop nylon, folding them into tight squares to maximize space.
The grind of metal on metal suddenly echoed through the hollow warehouse. Scrounge didn’t stick around to identify the source. In a place this decayed, anything still moving was usually bad news.
He turned his back on the cage of treasures and looked up. To get out, he’d have to go vertically. He reached for his chest-mounted toolkit, his fingers found the loop by muscle memory, and he tucked away the final bits of treasure, beginning his ascent.
The pillars were a mess of rusty steel. Scrounge jumped, grabbing a crossbeam that creaked under the sudden weight of his gear. As the metal flexed, he engaged the integrated harness of his jumpsuit. With a quick snap of a carabiner, he tethered himself to the main vertical support. The magic of this integrated system was the tension. The jumpsuit’s internal webbing distributed the weight across his entire torso, moving with him as he climbed.
He reached a mid-level catwalk that had partially detached from the wall. As he scrambled across the tilting metal, the concrete on the ground beneath him began to sink, the river had carved its way under the building. As the water level slowly rose, swirling around the leftovers of his harvest, the buildings groaning got louder.
He lunged for the ledge of a high window, his boots finding a small ledge on the brickwork. As he hauled himself up and tumbled out onto the rooftop, he heard the heavy sound of the warehouse’s pillars fall as shelves and rusted beams finally gave in. He looked back to see another empty carcass of a building join the city’s landscape.
Scrounge stood quietly on the roof, listening to the static hum of the river and faint fluttering in the wind. He turned and spotted the blue tarp stretched over a metal beam. With one clean motion, he pulled it free and packed it away.
The harvest was a success.
Now it was time for the long trek home. He pulled out a strip of fish jerky and started moving, chewing as he crawled and climbed across the landscape. His mind already drafting new equipment to be sewn with the rewards of his harvest.
At its core, SCROUNGE was about having fun and making something my younger and.. Older self would be excited about. Throughout my time in design school, I had put a lot of pressure on myself to create only functional products and, over the years, this mindset started to affect my inspiration and creativity as a designer. This is why scrounge has felt like such a unique experience. Through my own scavenging adventures, letting my imagination roam free and constantly pushing my technical abilities, creating this suit has given me a very clear idea of what I want to pursue as a designer going forward.
