A floating city? What does that look like?

Pretty darn cool. But first, here’s some context for this ambitious project.

The background: Oceanix initially proposed a floating city concept at a UN roundtable in 2019. Busan signed on to host the first one—and inked a partnership agreement with the company and UN-Habitat in November 2021. This week, they unveiled the design plans. Construction will start soon and is likely to take two years.   

The plan: Now, Oceanix Busan will not be a typical sprawling city—but more like a township. It will consist of three floating platforms—and will be able to house 12,000 residents. The total surface area is only 15.5 acres. Each platform will be used for a different purpose: one for housing, one for public spaces like schools and theatres, and a third for floating cities R&D. And each platform connects to the others and to land via bridges. Here’s an aerial view of what they would look like:

Point to note: According to Oceanix, the city should be able to withstand 100-year storms, with a foundation that rises and falls with sea levels.

The cost of construction: $10,000 per square metre—adding up to a total of $627 million.

A ‘biorock’ marvel: These floating platforms will be first be prefabricated in factories and hauled out to sea—and will be located about a mile off the coastline. They will be anchored to the bottom of the ocean using a material called biorock. This uses low voltages of electricity to stimulate the growth of limestone out of ocean mineral deposits. The material has been mainly used to revive and create coral reefs. More importantly, it is tougher than concrete and yet buoyant. And it is the only marine construction material that “grows, heals itself, and becomes stronger with age.” FYI: The platforms can be unmoored in an emergency and hauled to the shore. 

Here is an underside view of the platforms:

100% sustainable: All of the electricity will be generated by solar panels—and the city will grow its own food: “Neighbourhoods will be designed with communal farms, aquaponic food-growing facilities and compost gardens, while seafood farms could be situated in the surrounding waters.”

The big vision is to create a city that operates on a “closed loop” system:

“That means that all the food for everyone who lives there is grown on the man-made islands, all the water is captured there, all the waste is reused, and all of these fundamental operations only use energy that can be harvested by the floating city itself.”

Here’s one close up view of what it might feel like to be inside this city:

Here’s another:

Point to note: There are no cars or metros in this city. People will have to travel either by bicycle or on foot.

Beyond Busan: If this experiment is successful, they could quickly be developed across the world—in places like the Maldives, Dubai, Monaco, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Miami or New York. The project’s investors believe the potential is vast:

“The first prototype is always more expensive because you don’t have scale behind you. In the long run, we believe that these platforms can be scaled to be very viable all over the world.”

Why is this city a big deal?

Because we have to find a solution for rising sea levels—which have become inevitable due to climate change. The latest UN data indicates sea levels could rise by as much as 1.1 metres by the end of the century—and it will affect the lives of 190 million people. In India, 12 coastal cities are under threat of being fully submerged by that time—including Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, and Visakhapatnam.

Quote to note: UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed sums up what’s at stake in Busan:

“We live in a time when we cannot continue building cities the way New York or Nairobi were built. We must build cities knowing that they will be on the front lines of climate-related risks—from rising sea levels to storms. Floating cities can be part of our new arsenal of tools.”

The bottomline: A significant part of climate change is now irreversible—even if we were to suddenly get our act together to save ourselves from the worst. So we must prepare for a future—and it may not be so grim if we do.

Reading list

CNBC News has the latest report on the design plans—but this older CNN piece has more details on the vision. For more on Oceanix and its vision, read this Fast Company profile. Scientific American profiles the Seasteading Institute which embraces an even more radical vision of floating cities—think entirely sovereign countries floating in the sea. BBC News and Atlas Obscura have more on the Netherlands' floating neighbourhoods and homes.