The South Korean city of Busan has the green light for an ambitious new ocean colony, with work on the first neighborhood set to begin next year.
The initiative aims to find solutions for coastal cities that are threatened by rising sea levels: According to UN-Habitat, two out of five people worldwide live within 100 kilometers of the coast, and 90 percent of megacities worldwide are threatened by rising sea levels.
The Oceanix project
The Oceanix project, a collaboration of designers, architects, and engineers, unveiled plans for a “flood-proof” city in 2019 – and organizers have since looked for a place to build prototypes. Last month the group signed an agreement with Busan and UN-Habitat, the United Nations urban development agency, to host the first of their floating neighborhoods off the South Korean coast.
The floating city to be built off the coast of Busan is conceived as a “flood-resistant” infrastructure that rises with the sea and produces its own food, energy, and freshwater with fully integrated zero-waste closed-loop systems.
“Sustainable floating cities are part of the arsenal of climate adaptation strategies available to us,” said Maimunah Mohd Sharif, executive director of UN-Habitat. “Instead of struggling with the water, let’s learn to live in harmony with it. We are committed to developing climate adaptation and nature-based solutions through the floating city concept and Busan is the perfect choice to deploy the prototype.
The platforms, prefabricated in the factory and then towed into position, will rise and fall at the sea’s discretion; each of the five-acre neighborhoods is designed for 300 people in buildings of up to seven floors.
The theory of closed systems
The planned settlement was designed as “self-sufficient”, whereby the residents can produce their own food and energy in “zero-waste-closed-loop systems”. Neighborhoods are designed with community farms, aquaponics, and compost gardens, while fish farms could be set up in the surrounding waters.
According to Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the Danish architectural firm that led the design, neighborhoods could be grouped around a central port to form larger villages of 1,650 residents. These villages could then theoretically merge into a larger metropolis of 10,000 people – called Oceanix City – with everything from restaurants and co-working spaces to urban farms and recreational facilities.
Busan, on the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula, has 3.4 million inhabitants and is one of the busiest seaports in the world. Busan says that supporting the project it also aims to nurture a new generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers in the blue technology field.
Busan Mayor Park Heong-Joon said, “With the complex changes faced by coastal cities, we need a new vision where people, nature, and technology can coexist. There is no better place than Busan to take the first step towards sustainable human settlements on the ocean that Korea proudly built for the world.
“Rising sea levels are a formidable threat, but the sustainable floating infrastructure can help cope with this looming disaster. We are excited to be making history with Busan and UN-Habitat by ushering in the next frontier for mankind, “said Itai Madamombe and Marc Collins Chen, co-founders of Oceanix.
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Source-
1. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/oceanix-city-floating-busan-south-korea/index.html
2. https://cities-today.com/flood-resistant-floating-city-to-be-built-in-south-korea/