UN-Habitat and blue tech firm OCEANIX unveiled the design of the world’s first prototype for a sustainable floating city, to be hosted by Busan. The project is intended to provide a scalable framework of development for coastal cities facing land shortages and rising sea levels. With a population of 3.4 million people, Busan is the second-largest city in the Republic of Korea and, at the same time, one of the most important maritime cities, making it a suitable environment for deploying the floating city prototype.
“We are on track to delivering OCEANIX Busan and demonstrating that floating infrastructure can create new land for coastal cities looking for sustainable ways to expand onto the ocean while adapting to sea-level rise,” said the Chief Executive Officer of OCEANIX, Mr. Philipp Hofmann at the meeting hosted at UN’s Headquarters in New York. The floating community of OCEANIX will feature a total of 15.5 acres of interconnected platforms, which would accommodate 12,000 people. Each neighbourhood contains low-rise buildings defined by soft lines and various terraces for indoor-outdoor living.
OCEANIX’s modular maritime neighbourhood will be a prototype for sustainable and resilient cities. As our first manifestation of this new form of waterborne urbanism, OCEANIX Busan will expand the city’s unique character and culture from dryland into the water around it. We believe OCEANIX’s floating platforms can be developed at scale to serve as the foundations for future resilient communities in the most vulnerable coastal locations on the frontlines of climate change - Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.
Designed to adapt to the shifting needs of Busan, the project has the potential to expand and accommodate more than 100,000 people. The project integrates zero waste and circular systems, closed-loop water systems, food, net-zero energy, innovative mobility, and coastal habitat regeneration. These interconnected systems will generate 100% of the required operational energy on-site through floating and rooftop photovoltaic panels.
OCEANIX is a blue tech company founded in 2018 with the scope of designing and building sustainable floating cities. Among the firm’s collaborators for the Busan prototype are Bjarke Ingels Group, SAMOO Architects and Engineers, Arup, the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering, the Korea Maritime and Ocean University, environmental artist Olafur Eliasson and Studio Other Spaces, the Center for Zero Waste Design and the Global Coral Reef Alliance.
