Sustainable Floating Cities Might be the Answer
Oceanix/BIG -Bjarke Ingels Group
Global warming is still the most critical thing that humankind should care about, especially in the wake of rising sea levels that can destroy whole coastal cities. While preventing this from happening is the best solution, a company named Oceanix already has plans for towns and urban areas that will be most affected by this phenomenon, in collaboration with MIT Center for Oceanic Engineering, Mobility in Chain, Sherwood Design Engineers, and Center for Zero Waste Design. Their idea seems pretty straightforward – build fully sustainable floating cities near the coast of affected areas.
To some, this idea may seem like far-fetched, but it was already discussed at a meeting at the UN, who are seriously considering it for the future. The floating cities are built to be flood-proof and to resist even the most powerful storms, with the last resort being towing the whole town to a safer location. These settlements are entirely eco-friendly and will not have an effect on life in the ocean. “It is not a question of one or the other. The technology exists for us to live on water, without killing marine ecosystems.” Said Marc Collins, co-founder of Oceanix.
The settlement is aptly named Oceanix City and will have a surface of 75-hectare (around 0.3 square miles) at first, with plans for growing it even bigger in the future thanks to the modular hexagonal platforms. Approximately 300 settlers would dwell on one platform, with the whole city serving around 10,000 people.
The plan is these cities to be fully sustainable, which means that settlers will grow their food and the energy will ultimately be drawn from renewable sources. Building components will be constructed on the nearest shore and then towed to their final site, to make the housing more affordable to people.
“The sea is our fate — it may also be our future,” said Bjarke Ingels of BIG, who is one of the most prolific architects of our time, adding “the first sustainable and self-sustained floating community, Oceanix City, is designed as a human-made ecosystem channeling circular flows of energy, water, food, and waste. Oceanix City is a blueprint for a modular maritime metropolis anchored in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”
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