A floating city.
Global
warming makes coastal lagoon ecosystems always more fragile, with sea rise and
frequent extreme weather conditions. Current practices of construction of
reclamation areas moving the coastline and destroying inner lagoon are no more
sustainable. However, sea trades make economical and social development of the
coastlines always essential and the growth of existing coastal urban systems
and the development of new coastal settlements are supposed to continue with
the rise of global population. At the same time, with economical changes and
depletion of natural resources, other urban system could suffer depopulation
and abandonment of large areas, like it happens today in Fordist industrial
cities.
The answer
we propose is a new urban model for a sustainable, resilient and reversable
development of coastal lagoon settlement: the floating city. “Floating bubbles”
with double curtain would contain neighborhood units with a mix of functions
(commercial, café, restaurant, offices, home-office single and duplex units),
around an inner green court. In the upper part of the “bubble”, a vegetable
garden with hydroponic cultures provide vegetables for the neighborhood unit,
while the lower part is occupied by technical services, drinkwater tanks and
sewage collection, partly brought to phytoremediation plants and partly used
for fertilizing. The inner curtain of the “bubble” would slide and rotate on
the outer courtain, reducing the effect of the wave movements. Photovoltaic
glasses in the upper part of the curtain, together with energy recovery from
wave movement, would provide partial energetical self-sufficiency of the “bubble”.
A system of opening in the two curtains would provide natural ventilation of
the “bubble” that works as a unique climatized system.
“Floating
bubbles” would not be isolated worlds. Floating piers, with moveable bridges
allowing boat transit, could provide pedestrian connections between the bubbles
and with coastline, like the urban streets do in a conventional settlement.
Finally,
floating islands with phytoremediation plants complete the system, allowing
phytoremediation of the gray water produced in the bubbles and enhancing the
quality of water of the lagoon.
The whole
floating city is not fixed, but can be moved to another location, and has a
near zero impact on the lagoon natural ecosystem.
