DO YOU EVER GET THE URGE TO JUST BUILD A NEW WORLD?
LIKE, FROM SCRATCH?
TO RE-THINK THE UNSUSTAINABLE PATTERNS THAT LED TO OVERCROWDED CITIES, DWINDLING NATURAL
RESOURCES, AND THE DRAMATIC IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE?
SOME SAY WE SHOULD JUST CUT
OUR LOSSES AND MOVE TO MARS.
AFTER ALL, WE’RE QUICKLY RUNNING OUT OF FRONTIERS HERE ON EARTH EXCEPT, OF COURSE,
THAT SALTY ONE COVERING 70% OF OUR PLANET.
HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO LIVING IN THE OCEAN?
WE’VE ALREADY BUILT UNDERWATER HOTELS AND SUBMARINE LABORATORIES,
AND WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING...
AN ATLANTIAN METROPOLIS WOULD BE AWESOME.
BUT THERE ARE A FEW REASONS BIOSHOCK IS PURELY FICTIONAL. INTENSE PRESSURE,
A DISTINCT LACK OF OXYGEN AND LIGHT, MAKE THIS EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE ON A LARGE SCALE.
BUT WHAT WE COULD DO IS BUILD A CITY ON TOP OF THE WATER.
IN FACT, COASTAL CITIES HAVE BEEN EXPANDING INTO THE OCEAN FOR DECADES, OFTEN RELYING
ON DESTRUCTIVE LAND RECLAMATION TECHNIQUES.
BUT WHAT IF WE SIMPLY DESIGNED CITIES TO FLOAT?
FLOATING VILLAGES EXIST ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND OVER THE PAST FEW DECADES, SOME WILD IDEAS
HAVE SURFACED FOR SCALING THAT UP.
It's not about kind of a rarefied, resort-like, free government, totally independent world
200 miles off the shoreline.
It's really about creating a working neighborhood that could sit within a protected harbor,
adjacent to a dense coastal city.
90% of the world’s major cities are going to be dealing with the effects of sea level rise
in the coming decades.
AS IT BEGINS TO SWEEP OUR FOUNDATIONS AWAY, COULD SEA LEVEL RISE FINALLY PROVIDE
THE FOUNDATION NEEDED FOR SUCH AN EXPERIMENT?
A COMPANY CALLED OCEANIX THINKS SO.
ALONGSIDE INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTORS, OCEANIX AND ITS TEAM
OF DESIGNERS AND ENGINEERS RECENTLY UNVEILED AT THE UNITED NATIONS
A CONCEPT FOR A SUSTAINABLE FLOATING CITY.
THE DESIGN AIMS TO SUPPORT 10,000 RESIDENTS, ACCOUNTING FOR FOOD, WASTE, WATER, ENERGY,
AND MOBILITY.
We wanted to make sure that we would provide all the resources that the people would need
to really feel like they're part of a vibrant collective system.
The design of Oceanix city is a move away from the very flashy, futurist kind of utopian
proposals we see a lot.
It reflects the kind of utopian architectural style that has been developed
maybe in the last 20 years called New Urbanism
to really give that nostalgic neighborhood feel to it.
THE TEAM STARTED WITH A SIMPLE CHOICE: THEY OPTED FOR A PONTOON STRUCTURE,
FOR MORE SHALLOW, SHELTERED HARBORS, OVER A SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE DESIGN
SUITED TO THE OPEN OCEAN.
THESE STRUCTURES, BESIDES BEING FLEXIBLE AND MODULAR, ARE RESISTANT TO
TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE
PROVIDED THEY’RE DESIGNED FOR THE PHYSICS OF WATER.
For any floating body on a water surface, there are actually six forces that act on it.
You've got the surge force, where an object sort of slides forward and backwards.
You've got a sway, where it slides from side to side.
You've got the heave, where it goes up and down;
a roll or a pitch or a yaw, where it rotates horizontally.
The hexagon just ends up being a great way of approximating the stability of a circular
shape in the water.
It really lends itself well to combining into fields, or rings, in order to, when you
combine six of them, create a sheltered harbor.
Then those kind of villages, or clusters, can combine to create an even larger sheltered harbor.
That kind of system of growth continues in a fractal pattern.
OKAY, SO AN AQUATIC, EARTHQUAKE-RESISTANT BEEHIVE
THAT GROWS OUTWARD LIKE A SNOWFLAKE?
I’M ONBOARD.
BUT WITHOUT WORKER BEES AND A QUEEN, HOW DOES THIS COLONY SUSTAIN ITSELF?
You could harness energy if you had a decent wind source through offshore wind turbines.
There's also this technology called OTEC, basically what it does is that it takes the
differential between the surface temperature of the sea and deeper waters to drive cooling
that creates an energy source.
IN ADDITION TO WIND TURBINES, OCEANIX CITY WILL RELY ON SOLAR PANELS AND WAVE ENERGY.
BUT WHAT THE TEAM BELIEVES IS MOST CRUCIAL IS A MIX OF HIGH- AND LOW-TECH SOLUTIONS,
PLUS SOME MINOR LIFESTYLE ADJUSTMENTS BY ITS RESIDENTS.
The plan is to embrace a plant-based diet.
When you eliminate animals from a diet, we can, right off the bat, start saving our resources
of land and water.
We are relying on greenhouses, orchards, and also aquaponics and aeroponics systems which
will be used within the platforms.
We are going to reduce the amount of waste we create by having reusable packaging throughout
the island and have as little waste created as possible.
We will recycle, we will reuse, and we will compost.
THOUGH THIS MAY JUST SEEM LIKE A QUICK FIX FOR OUR OVERDEVELOPMENT PROBLEM,
OCEANIX WANTS TO CONSIDER LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS THAT HELP THE MARINE ECOSYSTEM TOO.
You would really want cutouts to allow sunlight to penetrate.
In terms of the pontoon structures, some of them use gill technology that allows water
to actually pass through the structure minimizing the impact on the environment.
We're working with the Global Coral Reef Alliance on a technology called Biorock, which takes
a steel cage, puts a very small amount of electricity into it.
That electrical charge helps attract mineral deposits, which then attract coral and marine life.
By building up reefs, and itself acting as a kind of wave break, it can actually start to help
dampen the effects of storm surge, and waves, and erosion on existing coastlines.
I think what floating structures offer is quite a good intimacy with the water.
There's almost the sense of accountability or ownership of that particular patch of ocean
that you want to preserve.
BUT WHAT IT SEEMS EVERYONE IS AFTER AS THEY FLOAT THESE PROPOSALS…
IS A CHANCE TO START FRESH.
The modular approach to this design allows the city to flex its muscles in different ways.
And fit the needs not only of the city itself, but of the coastal city that it's adjacent to.
The lessons that we learn on the water, how we're growing food within a more compact
footprint, how we're generating our energy, how we're dealing with our waste are then
lessons that can actually then be exported back to land.
BUT WE WON’T IMMEDIATELY JUMP INTO A FULL-FLEDGED CITY RIGHT OFF THE BAT.
THESE PROJECTS COULD START OUT IN A FEW DIFFERENT WAYS.
If you're talking about satellite installations you would really be looking at the biggest
corporations in existence right now, which are tech companies.
Something like Google or Facebook creating a campus or a massive data center on a floating
platform off somewhere.
In a lot of ways, I think Disney would be perhaps the best candidate for creating a
floating resort city.
The first larger village for Oceanix could be something like a university.
SO…
HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO LIVING IN THE OCEAN?
I think we're closer than you might think.
Once we have a partnership with an interested city or state, we'll be able to pretty quickly
get a first prototype in the water and then really just build on it from there.
We work on a lot of different kinds of climate change adaptation projects.
In the case of New York City, we have a really dense, existing coastal neighborhood.
But what the Oceanix city provides is a tool to adapt.
I think we will see a lot of cities expand onto floating parts of themselves in the next 20 years.
The technology is there... let's try and make sure that we don't need for it to be so pressing
before we actually create these structures.
Let’s create it in anticipation of the need that will come.
FOR MORE EPISODES OF 'HOW CLOSE ARE WE?'
MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT THIS PLAYLIST, AND LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS WHAT YOU WANT
TO SEE US INVESTIGATE NEXT.
THANKS FOR WATCHING!