A city is slowly being built near Maldives. The city is a 10 minute boat ride from Maldives and will be able to house 20,000 people.
The city will feature 5,000 units that look like a brain coral. The first units will be unveiled this month, with people starting to move in early 2024. The whole city is due to be completed by 2027.
The project – a joint venture between Dutch Docklands and the Government of Maldives, is not meant as a wild experiment or futuristic vision: it’s being built as practical solution to the harsh reality of climate change.
The Maldives is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change because it risks being submerged with a projected sea level rise. It only has 1,190 islands and 80% of them are less than a meter above sea level.
The rise and fall of the sea could have an effect on the rising costs of living in this country. Koen Olthuis, founder of Waterstudio, is working to come up with a plan that will be safe for the more than half a million people in the Maldives.
Is this the future of architecture?
Raised by his parents in the Netherlands, Olthuis had been near water all his life. His mother was a shipbuilder and his father was an architect and engineer, so he combined his two talents to start Waterstudio. In 2003, Olthuis founded this architecture firm which builds on or into the water.
It wasn’t a big enough issue in the past to build a business around. The main issue was space, not climate change, in the past.
Climate change is driving floating architecture into the mainstream, as more and more houses, offices, schools and health care centers are built on water. Over 200 homes have been designed by Waterstudio in the last two decades.
The Netherlands has become a center for the movement, home to floating parks, floating dairy farms, and a floating office building which includes a greenhouse.
Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of GCA and Rick Lupton, an architect have both seen the potential in Floating Architecture as a practical solution for rising sea levels.
Climate change will create risks in the near future. Climbers face being flooded, and need to plan now or pay later. Floating buildings are part of this plan against climate change.
Last year, flooding cost the global economy more than $82 billion. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted that over 315 cities will experience 100-year floods before 2030.
Despite recent progress, efforts to create architecture on water still have a long way to go. Developers need to find ways to create affordable and viable buildings while also speeding up the construction process.
This Canadian city is being developed as the world’s largest artificial island
The Maldives project aims to achieve both, constructing a city of 20,000 people in less than five years. Other plans for floating cities have been launched, such as Oceanix City in Busan, South Korea and a series of floating islands on the Baltic Sea developed by Dutch company Blue21. However, those projects do not match this scale or timeframe.
The Waterstudio has designed a city with a rainbow of colors that provides wide, beachfront views and accommodations for walkers, bikers and drivers.
Maldives is densely populated. There are more than 200,000 people in an area of about 8 square kilometers. The price for a studio starts at $150,000 and for a family home it starts at $250,000.
The units are constructed in a shipyard, then towed to the floating city. They are attached and screwed to large underwater concrete hulls which prevents the city from being tossed by waves. Coral reefs around the city help prevent inhabitants from feeling seasick.
As a self-sustaining city, there is to be plenty for residents to do, such as electricity and sewage treatment. Solar will be the power source. As an alternative to air conditioning, there’s deep water sea cooling.
This type of architecture will be propelled to the next level. Rather than be commissioned by the super-rich, this architecture is an answer to climate change and urbanization that’s both practical and affordable. It will no longer be considered “freak architecture”.
Architecture can have a positive impact on the world by “scaling up,” as stated by the architect.