Climate Change – A Step Ahead – A Floating City

…

People around the world are struggling with the consequences of the climate crisis. Concerns about what the future might bring are on all of our minds. The rising heat in the cities, droughts in the countryside, flooding, wildfires -it is all happening with greater frequency.

In the Maldives, the threat is so real and the pressure so high, that lawmakers have been less hesitant than elsewhere to give an unconventional solution a chance.

There is no denying anymore that climate change is happening, and thinking and planning ahead is as necessary as spreading awareness of the facts.

The Maldives is a group of more than a thousand islands, but some 80 percent of the land on the islands is located below sea level. If the forecasts are correct and the ocean level rises by a full meter by the year 2100, almost all the island groups in the Maldives could be flooded. The capital city Male is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with 200,000 people crowding into an area of about 8 square kilometers.

Water is a major problem where there is regular flooding, unpredictable weather, coastal erosion, and contamination of drinking water supplies. 

What will the future hold?

A city for 20,000 people built on water is being constructed in record time in the Maldives. The largest project of its kind to be built to date, it could serve as a model for other cities affected by rising sea levels.

What is taking shape, rising from the turquoise waters only 10 minutes by boat away from the Maldivian capital city Male, will one day look like a giant coral reef from the air. A floating city in the Indian Ocean, built on the sea with enough housing for 20,000 people.

The Maldivian government and Netherlands-based real estate developer Dutch Docklands have joined forces to design and finance the project. The components of what will soon be swimming homes, floating streets, playgrounds, schools, and restaurants are being built and assembled piece by piece, like Lego bricks.

In the Maldives, the threat is so real and the pressure so high, that lawmakers have been less hesitant than elsewhere to give an unconventional solution a chance.

A Floating City

Koen Olthuis an architect in the Netherlands, another country perpetually threatened by water, came up with water-based structures and his design made Olthuis famous. For the past 20 years, his office Waterstudio has been working on many plans, but the Maldives project is the first to take shape on such a large scale. “For years, we thought we could fight the water by building dikes and canals,” he says in a telephone interview. “Everyone thought that as long as you fight hard enough, we could defeat nature. But the consequences of climate change have made it clear that this battle can no longer be won. We urgently need to rethink things.”

Olthuis believes rethinking means adapting to the flow of water and giving it space. The speed with which global warming is progressing and water levels are rising has surprised many scientists. That makes it difficult to anticipate how high the next levee or the next flood wall must be, he says. As such, it is perhaps best to change course entirely and head out onto the water. A floating city, after all, cannot be flooded and cannot sink.

Critics of such unconventional designs have been quick to complain that the floating cities would be too expensive to build but the project in the Maldives is so large in scale that construction costs will drop tremendously. What is being built there, is not a project for the rich. It’s for ordinary people to be able to rent or buy apartments, be they taxi drivers, the teachers. The city will be for families and singles.

Prior to construction, residents were asked how they thought the waterfront development should look. Accordingly, the designs are modeled on the colorful houses of fishing families that are typical in the island nation.

A virtual boat cruise through the Floating City development, which has been designed to evoke the colorful fishermen’s houses in the region. 

A bit too futuristic? Or the right answer to prevent future floods from causing so much harm?

“All the buildings and individual parts are on floating, interconnected platforms,” Olthuis says. “Small parks or squares are located at the connecting points. They are attached to the seabed by a telescoping pile to ensure that the whole city can move up and down with the tides by up to two and a half meters.”

The components, largely concrete tubs, are produced in factories located close to the port, currently primarily in the Maldives, but they could also be manufactured in India, China, and Sri Lanka in the future. They are brought by ship to the construction site, where they are assembled like a puzzle. Construction of the whole city is expected to take around five years, with completion estimated in 2027. The first residents are expected to move within a year and a half, significantly faster than in comparable large-scale urban development projects on land.

Olthuis says the floating city is being watched closely by the governments of other cities threatened by rising water levels, including Jakarta, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Shanghai. For the first time, he says, the water off the coast is no longer just a threat –it can now be viewed as an opportunity for increasing the urban area available to us and living there at much less risk. 

I think it’s a brilliant idea! A floating city can’t sink.

The future will happen. How prepared we are is up to us?