{"id":527677,"date":"2020-10-17T11:09:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-17T11:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/?p=527677"},"modified":"2024-03-26T10:37:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T10:37:48","slug":"cities-that-float-on-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/megatrends\/cities-that-float-on-the-sea.html","title":{"rendered":"Floating cities: the latest projects from Singapore to San Marino"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Floating<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Will the cities of the future be floating atop the sea? Several projects and experiments around the globe are pointing in that direction. The new frontier of urbanization is increasingly linked to the idea of colonizing the sea<\/strong> through floating cities.<\/strong> From French Polynesia<\/strong> to Monte Carlo<\/strong>, mega-plans to for humans to inhabit the seas are multiplying, driven by population growth <\/strong>and concerns about sustainability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A floating city in Tahiti: the Singapore project<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The pioneers of this new future live in\u00a0Singapore<\/a><\/strong>: this is where a start-up called\u00a0Blue Frontiers\u00a0<\/strong>is based that has signed an agreement with the government of French Polynesia to build the world\u2019s first floating city<\/strong>, just south of the country\u2019s capital of Tahiti. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modular city\nwill be built on a secure area where the water<\/strong> is no more than 30 meters deep<\/strong>,\nand less than a kilometer from the coast. It will be composed of 11 square or\npentagonal platforms, each one 700 square meters large, that are built with\nreinforced concrete and connected to one another through a series of bridges.\nThe budget is set at $60\nmillion<\/strong> to build this floating mini city<\/strong>, which will be equipped\nwith homes<\/strong>, a hotel, restaurants and offices<\/strong>. To\nraise the necessary funding, Blue Frontiers aims to finance <\/strong>the project in bitcoin<\/strong>.
\nThe idea of building cities on man-made islands is not new. Already during\nthe 1960s<\/strong> the\nU.S. philosopher-architect Buckminster Fuller proposed a plan for Japan to\nbuild a floating city called Triton\nCity<\/strong>, with the idea of solving <\/strong>Tokyo<\/a>\u2019s overpopulation<\/strong> problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That project never made it<\/strong> off\nthe drawing board, but now nearly sixty years later Tahiti will have its\nchance, with work slated to start by 2020. Blue Frontiers is not taking on this\nproject on its own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is supported by a large U.S. institution, the Seasteading Institute of San Francisco<\/strong>, a non-profit organization managed by Joe Quirk founded in 2008, dedicated to looking for technological solutions for builders of floating cities. The idea for the Tahiti project is to create a self-sufficient community<\/strong> far from the coast with a strong sustainability imprint: the \u201chuts,\u201d which will not exceed 3 meters in height to avoid a visual impact on the environment, will be powered by solar panels and the water will be desalinated<\/a> and recycled.  <\/strong> \u00abI want to see floating cities by 2050, thousands of them hopefully, each of them offering different ways of governance\u00bb, Quirk said. \u00abThe more people moving among them, the more choices we\u2019ll have and the more likely it is we can have peace, prosperity and innovation\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Floating
Udaipur City, India<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite his resemblance to a nineteenth-century utopian Socialist, Quirk has the backing of Silicon Valley, and the founder and principal sponsor <\/strong>of the Seasteading Institute is Peter Thiel<\/strong>, the billionaire founder<\/strong> of PayPal.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monte Carlo and the new floating city of Renzo Piano<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But Quirk\u2019s dream\nof a modern Atlantis re-emerging from the waters is not the only one. Actually,\nplans for floating\ncities<\/strong> are multiplying\naround the world.<\/strong> San Francisco tried one in 2010, without\nsuccess. Monte Carlo, on the other hand, has already started construction work\non Portier\nCove<\/strong>, and will\nsoon unveil a six-hectare eco-development of artificial islands.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tiny\nPrincipality of Monaco is hungry for more space. It has built on every\navailable corner of land, reaching a population density of 38,400 residents in\ntwo square kilometers and making it the world\u2019s second-most crowded country. The only possibility to grow<\/strong> is\nto build on\nthe sea.<\/strong> In front of the Larvotto beach, Italian\narchitect Renzo\nPiano<\/strong> is designing <\/strong>a\nmassive floating\ncity <\/strong>that will cost between 2-3 billion euros. The sum\nwill be covered mainly by private investors, while Prince Ranieri\u2019s\nadministration will take a minority stake. Work has already begun, and the first gigantic pillar <\/strong>\u2013\n27 meters high and weighing 10 tons \u2013 has already been put in place.<\/strong> The project calls\nfor more maxi-pillars to support the floating city, plus 600,000 tons of sand\nthat will arrive from Sicily to fill a 30-meter-deep embankment. The\ninhabitable part of the artificial island will have 60,000 square meters of\nresidential real estate, a skyscraper, 3,000 square meters of shops, a yachting\nport and a \u201cbranch\u201d of the Grimaldi Forum, the Principality\u2019s conference\ncenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These super-exclusive\nresidences <\/strong>of the future will not be affordable for everyone<\/strong>:\naccording to estimates based on current real estate values in Monte\nCarlo, prices\nwill range<\/strong> from 80,000 to 100,000 euros<\/strong> per square meter. <\/strong>The\nbuilders could reap 5 billion euros from the sale, or double the forecasted\nconstruction costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Floating cities and water urbanization<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The theme of floating cities <\/strong>is sparking interest<\/strong> all across Europe<\/strong>. In the Netherlands<\/strong>, the marine research institute MARIN has been awarded a grant by the European Union to research possible solutions. The institute is a leader of the \u201cSpace at Sea\u201d project<\/strong>, which won 1.6 million in EU funding to come up with projects for floating cities over the next three years wherever it is possible to duplicate a lifestyle on land \u2013 from vertical farms to ports and parks. With this goal in mind, MARIN <\/strong>is adopting an urban model<\/strong> that can fit all of the EU countries <\/strong>that border the sea. It is a first step towards the urbanization of water<\/strong>, and a bet that could bring the dream of floating cities within the reach of everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will the cities of the future be floating atop the sea? Several projects and experiments around the globe are pointing in that direction. The new frontier of urbanization is increasingly linked to the idea of colonizing the sea through floating cities. From French Polynesia to Monte Carlo, mega-plans to for humans to inhabit the seas are multiplying, driven by population growth and concerns about sustainability. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":152524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19017,19011,12217,12216],"yst_prominent_words":[6753,3448,377,30773,6762,30772,30774,15036,19979,9727,6754,11468,3671,1266,22453,6756,20353,14885,30775,3858],"class_list":["post-527677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-megatrends","tag-city-of-tomorrow","tag-new-technologies","tag-sustainable-development","tag-water"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527677"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562186,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527677\/revisions\/562186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527677"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=527677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}