Floating City

[verticalextropy]

Low density Units





Bigger Floating Island



Floating Islands clustering into a city













A different breakwater-city



View from light house floating inside protected lagoon


View from inward-looking balcony of the breakwater city


View from Breakwater city of shell cluster city in background

[verticalextropy]

The floating city is meant for the open ocean, and is a cluster of different structures







Asteroid Mining companies find it an ideal location to establish headquarters


Coastline


Satellite View:


Flyover video
https://youtu.be/VRxv7OicGi8

[BillM]

This is really imaginative. I am looking forward to seeing this one grow!

Would the city move around or would it stay in the same place?

[Skydragon42]

Well this is quite impressive!

[Vellu]

Very interesting concept and good looking architecture! Nice modelling too, and good renders. Overall beautiful job!

[verticalextropy]

Thank you guys!
I think a floating solution could be the ideal "platform" to make a very cool collaborative city - group project, without the constrains of snap-fit downloadable plots of land. What do you think?

I'll begin explaining some concepts using just one main structure:
This we call "Ramform Island", it's basically a large, light cement ship with a broad moonpool. It is just one possible solution for surface, sun-drenched, platforms.

Initial Floating Harbor,it begins with a tall bow, a clear point of reference.


Initially the moon pool space might be used as a marina. while the inside of the breakwater could function as terraced condos




The lateral breakwaters (joined at the wave-splitting bow) can grow, in segments if necessary (sea train) and make the surface area of the protected moonpool exponentially bigger


Allowing bigger ships and a floating village of smaller, lighter, individually scaled sea houses to cluster inside.



Light truss floating houses can provide outdoor and semi outdoor space in a smaller, less dense scale than the large breakwater condominiums.




Just as well the whole thing can be part (or travel among) larger clusters of different marine cities (in reply to your question @BillM )

[Vellu]

Originally Posted by verticalextropy

Thank you guys!
I think a floating solution could be the ideal "platform" to make a very cool collaborative city - group project, without the constrains of snap-fit downloadable plots of land. What do you think?

I think this could be a good platform for a community city. I'm sceptical though, that this site could support a community city with so few active members. I myself don't have much time and I'm too much into my own city. Maybe you should bring this idea up at the SSC 3d forum.

I'm wondering that, if this kind of city would actually exist, would it be very static like land cities where buildings don't change places, or would it be very dynamic so that boats would change place often.

[verticalextropy]

Originally Posted by Vellu

Maybe you should bring this idea up at the SSC 3d forum.

You´re spot on, but how could I be forgiven if I didn´t test the waters in this beloved corner of the internet first?

Originally Posted by Vellu

I'm wondering that, if this kind of city would actually exist, would it be very static like land cities where buildings don't change places, or would it be very dynamic so that boats would change place often.

Good question. Most of the concepts for individual buildings in the above images are meant to have full (yet slow) mobility.
The Crescent or Ramform shape features a tall massive ship-like bow that faces the waves and tides, while the broad aft allows maximum stability for the moonpool or harbor it shelters, even in movement or in the high seas:


These models for a ¨sea house¨ with dock, or floating private island are able to migrate from one coast, neighborhood, or ocean to another, perhaps surpassing the experience of a natural private island.
The aft-facing decks are partially shaded by the enclosing shell.





I am also working on visualizing another type of town-sized structure (a bowl, or plate) that I imagine would be almost completly stationary, much like a floating polder, in a scale more in line with the spirit of Skyscraper Page and City.

[verticalextropy]

The smaller Ramform Floating Island is kinda like a private Island or simply building that you can safely sail to a different location when or if needed. Its ¨parking lot¨is the moonpool harbor to the aft protected by the ärms. The living space is a slightly triangular capsule for maximum safety.

[Vellu]

It would be very interesting to see "skyscraper ships", ships that would be more tall than wide or long. I imagine these would reach very deep under water to be stable - like icebergs.

[verticalextropy]

Originally Posted by Vellu

It would be very interesting to see "skyscraper ships", ships that would be more tall than wide or long. I imagine these would reach very deep under water to be stable - like icebergs.

Precisely, and just like icebergs the underwater part would have to be a lot wider and massive than the emerging ¨tower¨. Therefore rather than a skyscraper it would be more like the spire of an underwater building.
-----

The ¨real¨ floating skyscraper is a basically a cruise ship or large ferry (which unlike skyscrapers you have a lot of them in your coasts, so perhaps less rarity value?)

But a metal ship lasts some 40 years and needs to be maintained regularly and fit into drydocks or at least harbors. This limits their size.

A very wide and long (but not deep at all) floatin building for the open sea would have to have a tall bow.


Not a skyscraper effect but at least it can provide some views and perspetive for the floating village in the calm water harbor its wings create.

[Vellu]

Originally Posted by verticalextropy

Precisely, and just like icebergs the underwater part would have to be a lot wider and massive than the emerging ¨tower¨. Therefore rather than a skyscraper it would be more like the spire of an underwater building.

I'm still thinking about this concept of "sea skyscraper". I think the the parts above surface would be used as living areas as well as some of the submerged parts (most likely the ones closer to the surface and on the outer wall), but that leaves a whole lot of space on the interior of the submerged part. Maybe casinos and other recreational facilities for the whole sea city?

[verticalextropy]

Originally Posted by Vellu

I'm still thinking about this concept of "sea skyscraper".
that leaves a whole lot of space on the interior of the submerged part. Maybe casinos and other recreational facilities for the whole sea city?

Underwater the building can be turned inside out, with a huge atrium under a skylight functioning as "exterior" space, the Ocean Sphere.

But kept thinking about "traditional" skyscrapers too and sketched a concept. A very large plate can sustain a replica of a few land-typical town blocks. The points of the stars would allow for the necessary stability and also create coves.

Five Harbours Towers






Granted the skyscrapers are not yet beautiful but show the possible volumes

More pictures of floating supertalls here

[verticalextropy]

of courset that's quiet a bit of freeboard for the plate. It is contrasting with the half a km supertalls, but only slightly with the churche's spires.

Another way would be to put the high rises inside the protective shell:



200m Diameter concrete shell.

http://tinyurl.com/jndg5k3

[Patrick]

Verticalextropy, Floating City is absolutely insane! I admire the creativity and amount of thought your putting into this. I simply do not have the skills and patience to model something this complex in Sketchup.

I'm excited to see how those skyscrapers turn out!

[Vellu]

Very well thought out concepts! I especially like the skyscraper with the star-shaped base, but the underwater sphere city is also very interesting. This might the future for humandkind, if the rising temperatures melt the polar ice and water levels rise, forcing most of the people to move into these kinds of floating cities.

[verticalextropy]

Thank you Patrick (I don't agree with your conclusion, obviously) !

Originally Posted by Vellu

This might the future for humandkind, if the rising temperatures melt the polar ice and water levels rise, forcing most of the people to move into these kinds of floating cities.

Ice or no ice, I see a flood of humans forcing existing cities beyond mere "unsustainability". High density urbaization, as we all agree in this corner, looks like a possible and shiny future. New, big cities could use two things: a blank sheet (notice Orlando, Vegas, Dubay built on swamp, desert, water) and ideally, mobility.


Bubble Cluster


Interior of a Bubble, stadium shaped neighborhood.

[Vellu]

That Bubble Cluster looks like it's a very pleasant living environment - at least in calm weather. I admire the thought put in to this.

[verticalextropy]

thank you Vellu,
In calm waters people can enjoy the outdoors and kayak or swim around the bubble cluster. In rough weather it's better to remain inside the protection of the shells.

By the same token, a box honeycomb alley city, or neighborhood, could fare better entirely contained within a semi submerged sphere, as so






An underwater sphere in the tropics with a skylight could get as much natural light as a Scandinavian Spring, and at a constant 20 degrees (because of all the water around it!)

[Vellu]

Yet another very interesting concept! The architecture gives me a vibe of a medieval middle-eastern city or the hanging gardens or a roman colosseum brought to 21st century.