Floating Utopia
Sustainable Island City : Architecture Thesis 2012
Thesis Research and Project
DEMOGRAPHICS FOR AN IMBALANCED WORLD:
This map displays the disproportionate and decentralized population of each respective continent. Notably, most of the population is centered along the coast, where 13 of the 20 mega-world cities are located. Traditionally, people gathered and developed towns around water as a means of defense as well as trade.
Today, these waterfront cities are beginning to recognize the negative consequences of such a massive population movement into urban areas. In order to deal with the growing density of these urban metropolises, the natural instinct is to build up and in, creating a much more dense area within their city boundaries. However, since the conception of these waterfront port cities, urban sprawl has led to cities branching out in all directions to accomodate the growing population migration. Unfortunately, the majority of the world’s most populated mega-cities are located along the coast, and with the growing concern over the inevitable rise of ocean sea levels, a new typology for mitigating urban has been conceived.
THE PROJECT:
Due to our current global warming conditions, the world’s seawater level is expected to rise 4.5 feet by 2100. While this may seem insignificant at scale, it will certainly have catastrophic results for shore based communities. Given that nearly all our world’s cities were founded near the ocean, the great body of water has brought and proliferated life, but now looms in the future with certain destruction. As a force that can be mitigated only so far, the world has turned to creating alternative typologies to sustain life. This proposal is for a ecologically closed loop, floating utopia of the 21st century.
This “urban oasis” will be floating in tropical ocean waters and will provide all the necessary elements to sustain modern life. The project will take cues from our physical sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics) to reenact processes of the natural world to harness the generative and restorative energies of the world’s oceans.
ISLAND PROGRAM:
Programmatically, the city is divided up into a series of public and private spaces. Each space serves a specific program and can be found relatively easily in relation to the others. The main structure and form for this Floating City is made up of community modules which are each sixteen stories tall, and are partially submerged below the ocean water.
There is a hierarchy within the city which promotes more solar and publicly oriented functions near the top and interior, while organizing the city’s service spaces near the bottom, being partially submerged. Sitting near the top of the city structure, you will notice a continuous promenade functioning as the city’s main street, where public markets, resort hotels, and public entertainment activities are located.
At the city’s heart, there is an ever-growing agriculture tower which provides enough food to feed its 20,000 inhabitants. And underwater, these modules provide service space to house the city’s massive recycling and waste regeneration facilities.
GUIDELINES FOR CITY GROWTH:
The notion was that no existing cities had one particular form or style, but that there were instead invisible guidelines for how the city could grow naturally. This notion of creating a framework for city growth intrigued me and helped me establish a set of rules to allow the city to construct itself after an initial architect’s plan.
The idea was that this Floating City could start as small as necessary. In the beginning, free floating platform technology will provide the first uses for sea-faring buildings. The City may start out as an off-shore energy production facility with solar panels, wind turbines, and integrated ocean thermal energy converters that will allow energy generation 24/7 for any shore-line community.
When the city government, or a private enterprise discovers the value and ultimate potential of such a simple and easily repeatable floatable framework, the city will find room to grow in all directions. With just one repeatable hexagonal module, an entirely organic and natural process of growth can occur. Simply, when there is enough money for expansion, hexagonal modules can be added to any area of the city and can be retrofitted to accommodate any new program for the floating city.
SHAPED BY SUNLIGHT:
Thanks to the city’s porous design, there are numerous interstitial spaces throughout the city’s construction. These voids are utilized as urban public space and allow vertical and horizontal circulation. Each new level of circulation cascades away from the next, offering unobstructed availability to light, views, and fresh air. in addition, where the city meets the water, new harbors and maritime activities emerge, offering a water-taxi service to promote tourism and circulation.
The city comes alive at night and with a combination of warm wood and buoyant concrete, the city partitions radiate heat onto the night-lit promenades. From each terrace encompassing the city, multiple stories of activity can be seen and easily accessed; and with the radial city design, nothing is more than a twenty minute walk in any direction.
AN INFINITELY CONNECTABLE STRUCTURAL MODULE:
Perhaps the most significant breakthrough for this project was the discovery of an optimized form, perfect for modular connectivity. The shape is referred to as a bitruncated cubic honeycomb, and is composed of eight hexagons, and six squares, each with members of equal length.
Such a module allows for unlimited three-dimensional connectivity, a maximum volumetric space, and a maximum surface area allowing maximum solar exposure. The module form is modelled after the geometric ideal for soap bubbles.
FRACTAL GROWTH:
With an ideal module discovered, a new parameter for growth and connection needed to be established. By providing a one-size repeatable module, the spatial quality around the city was incredibly boring; there was only one type and scale of space. However, when looking into nature, usually there is a simplified form - such as a leaf - which is mass produced, and with the same module, allows growth and proliferation of different sized modules. For this next step, our original module has been scaled down to several different sizes allowing a much more rich interconnection of city programs and interstitial circulation spaces.
IMPLICATIONS OF A SCALABLE MODULE:
The result is a city structure based on the ideal form for soap bubbles. With more than three different sized modules, a vocabulary of hexagons is established and spaces within the city are sculpted away with each new addition. There are three primary modules that inform city neighborhoods. One is 16 stories tall, and is referred to as the Community Module. One is 8 stories tall, and is the Neighborhood Module, and one is 4 stories tall, which is the Residence Module. Each scaled module contains multiple programmatic uses.
The result is a city structure based on the ideal form for soap bubbles. With more than three different sized modules, a vocabulary of hexagons is established and spaces within the city are sculpted away with each new addition. There are three primary modules that inform city neighborhoods. One is 16 stories tall, and is referred to as the Community Module. One is 8 stories tall, and is the Neighborhood Module, and one is 4 stories tall, which is the Residence Module. Each scaled module contains multiple programmatic uses.
Seen here, each multi-level module contains a rich spatial structure that may be manipulated with the addition or subtraction of modular plates. These modular connections work so well together, circulation acess winds easily around the main levels of each module. By placing each circulation path at the center and bottom floors of each module, a dynamic network of city street life is established. Most open spaces will account for a higher density of pedestrian trafic as well as increased solar penetration.
