Floating Cities and Equitable Grafting onto Marine Ecosystems

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Author(s)
Giurgiu, Ioana Corina
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2021
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Based on current predictions of sea level rise and other climatic changes, in the near future, large urban coastal areas will no longer provide viable urban environments for human habitation. In response, floating city design proposals of various scales, degrees of connectivity and mobility are emerging as potential adaptations to predicted climate changes which partially or completely replace existing coastal urban typology. The prospect of utilizing large floating structures for urban habitation and energy production seems highly appealing from an urban development perspective as it allows for a certain degree of continuity ...
View more >Based on current predictions of sea level rise and other climatic changes, in the near future, large urban coastal areas will no longer provide viable urban environments for human habitation. In response, floating city design proposals of various scales, degrees of connectivity and mobility are emerging as potential adaptations to predicted climate changes which partially or completely replace existing coastal urban typology. The prospect of utilizing large floating structures for urban habitation and energy production seems highly appealing from an urban development perspective as it allows for a certain degree of continuity between the existing coastal typology and its envisioned floating counterpart. However, transplanting the large scale, static and perpetually connected land-based city model within an aquatic environment may prove challenging in terms of maintaining an equitable relationship between urban growth and marine ecosystem maintenance. By analyzing the floating city model as a graft onto marine ecosystems, the paper explores site selection, scale and mobility, highlighting opportunities for future floating city proposals to enhance and contribute to the host marine environments they inhabit.
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View more >Based on current predictions of sea level rise and other climatic changes, in the near future, large urban coastal areas will no longer provide viable urban environments for human habitation. In response, floating city design proposals of various scales, degrees of connectivity and mobility are emerging as potential adaptations to predicted climate changes which partially or completely replace existing coastal urban typology. The prospect of utilizing large floating structures for urban habitation and energy production seems highly appealing from an urban development perspective as it allows for a certain degree of continuity between the existing coastal typology and its envisioned floating counterpart. However, transplanting the large scale, static and perpetually connected land-based city model within an aquatic environment may prove challenging in terms of maintaining an equitable relationship between urban growth and marine ecosystem maintenance. By analyzing the floating city model as a graft onto marine ecosystems, the paper explores site selection, scale and mobility, highlighting opportunities for future floating city proposals to enhance and contribute to the host marine environments they inhabit.
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Conference Title
2nd World Conference on Floating Solutions 2020 (WCFS 2020)
Volume
158
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
Subject
Sustainable architecture
Urban design
Ecosystem function