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| Plan for Tokyo Bay by Kenzo Tange, 1960. Wikimedia |
Topics: Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Climate Change, Global Warming
The main problem I see: the seeking of public funding for a Utopian project could easily benefit the well-healed instead of the needy many. It would be cynical to use government funds, first gaining public support, then diverting funds but not unlikely. The wrong-type of people being preserved after the earth is ravaged by our environmental hubris is the main plot of the movie Elysium.
Humans have a long history of living on water. Our water homes span the fishing villages in Southeast Asia, Peru and Bolivia to modern floating homes in Vancouver and Amsterdam. As our cities grapple with overcrowding and undesirable living situations, the ocean remains a potential frontier for sophisticated water-based communities.
The United Nations has expressed support for further research into floating cities in response to rising sea levels and to house climate refugees. A speculative proposal, Oceanix City, was unveiled in April at the first Round Table on Sustainable Floating Cities at UN headquarters in New York.
The former tourism minister of French Polynesia, Marc Collins Chen, and architecture studio BIG advanced the proposal. Chen is involved with the Seasteading Institute, which is seeking to develop autonomous city-states floating in the shallow waters of “host nations”.
While this latest proposal has gained UN attention, it is an old idea we have repeatedly returned to over the past 70 years with little success. In fact, the Oceanix City proposal has not reached the same level of technical sophistication as previous models.
Floating cities: the future or a washed-up idea? Cosmos magazine
Brydon T. Wang, Research Assistant and PhD Candidate, Queensland University of Technology
