This article about a prototype floating city being possible in three years states that unlike oil platforms, these cities wouldn’t be fixed in place. It also says that this type of community would be the perfect place to experiment with new forms of government. Marijuana, for example, could be legalized. I think if I were baked and the seas got a little rough, I would be so paranoid that the whole place would fall apart and my apartment would fall into the ocean.
I’d want more details before I signed a lease. Will these things actually float? If they are free floating, will they have any way to steer them? What will keep them from hitting other ships, bridges, land? What happens when the big tsunami hits? I guess the main questions are: What dangers does the sea itself pose to one of these superstructures, and how does its design address these potential dangers.
As long as the structure is far enough out to sea, the inhabitants wouldn’t even ever know that a tsunami passed by. Tsunamis don’t build up destructive power until they hit shallow water…a ship or city floating in the deep ocean would feel a tsunami as if it were just a regular swell.
OK, scratch tsunamis, then. From this we shall assume that one of the requirements of the floating city is that it be far enough out in the deep ocean that this will not effect it. But, will this thing just drift on ocean currents, or will it have engines or some other means of keeping itself in the same general vicinity (or are some ocean currents such that this would happen naturally? Are the sea’s effects on such a large structure about the same as the effects of wind on a skyscraper?
Or should I just drop it and assume that from an engineering standpoint this is cake? That the real barriers to making it work are financial, political, etc.?
I think I saw this on that Discovery Channel show “Shit They Ain’t Never Gonna Build”. Why on earth do we need some sort of floating city? It requires orders of magnitude more complexity than simply building an equivalent structure on land. And what would be the point?
We’ve pretty much mastered the tecnology for creating large, ocean-going structures like container ships, cruise liners, aircraft carriers and oil platforms. There just isn’t a political or economic reason to create such large structures as permenant civilian habitats.
You should also consider that a lot of these ‘floating city’ concepts (although I don’t know anything about the one you linked) are designed by architects, and are completely divorced from reality. They’re purely conceptual - kind of interesting to think about, but the practicality hasn’t even been looked at. I dunno if they’re possible or not, but I’d wager that most of the people designing them don’t either.
I could see floating cities as a place the ultra-rich might dig. They could be exceptionally selective about who can live and stay there. Likely as such crime would be very low to non-existant and the rich could enjoy their own little private utopia.
I agree not very practical overall and very unlikely to get built but I do not think there is any technical or engineering problem preventing the construction of such a thing.
And yeah…I am almost positive it would have engines. Would be bad if it just got pushed into a coastline or sand bar or something. I doubt it’d be zipping around but should be able to navigate.
I think all of the technical objections could be overcome if enough money were thrown at it. And a Bill Gates or Bond supervillain type might find it fun to have his or her own sovereign microstate. Nobody owns the top of the ocean; somebody owns every square meter of land on Earth. So I could see it happening someday.
What about rough seas?
I would imagine that you could incorporate a shock system into the main suuport platform that would prevent the upper canopy from moving too much in rough waters. Imagine a huge catamaran with shocks in the uprights. You could also steer the thing so the waves were cut perpendicularly, again minimizing movement.
I don’t think the buoyant movement would be as much a concern as high winds during tropical events.
Thanks. The other replies are interesting to consider, but this is more what I was looking for. I’d be interested to hear how these tropical events might realistically be dealt with.
Um, you have heard of floating houses in the Netherlands? They have been building them for some years. They float gently in a harbor, but when you want to move it’s much simpler than taking a land house with you. And they don’t have as much land available in the Netherlands as elsewhere.
The concept is simple - there’s already an industry that builds “Readymade houses”. You simply start with a waterproofed hollow concrete basin (instead of a waterproof concrete cellar or groundplate) fill it with special floating bodies, seal, and build a normal “Readymade house” on top of it. Tether to anchor in nice spot.
I think it would be swell to have a floating city drifting in the ocean. But as a horticulture nerd, I worry about the effects of drifting into entirely different climates.
There’s also the Freedom Ship project (which hasn’t gotten much further in the last decade), a giant floating city-on-a-boat. A Discovery Channel video of it from way back discusses some interesting things, including a bit about the movement system and rough waters, IFRC.
Creating more “land” for people who have none. It’s really just an extension of an old idea; people have been making artificial islands for a very long time. I could see someplace like Japan building floating islands some day, given that they both lack land and have technology and money ( well, when they aren’t in a downturn at least ).