(All Images by OCEANIX / BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group)
by Ron Bernthal
The Busan Metropolitan City of the Republic of Korea, UN-Habitat and and OCEANIX – Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have a historic agreement to build the world’s first prototype of a sustainable floating city. Coastal cities are on the frontlines of climate-related risks. Flooding is destroying billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and forcing millions of climate refugees to leave their homes. The challenge is huge: two out of every five people in the world live within 60 miles of the coast, and 90% of mega cities worldwide are vulnerable to rising sea levels. The floating city is seen as a flood-proof infrastructure that rises with the sea and produces its own food, energy and fresh water with fully integrated zero waste closed-loop systems.
“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 Philipp Hofmann, Chief Executive Officer of OCEANIX at a 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 residents. Each neighborhood contains low-rise buildings defined by soft lines and various terraces for indoor-outdoor living.
OCEANIX is a blue tech company founded by Itai Madamombe and Marc Collins Chen in 2018. Its mission is to design and build self-sustaining floating cities. The vision of the world’s first floating city for 10,000 residents was unveiled in April 2019 at a UN Roundtable co-convened by UN-Habitat, OCEANIX, the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering, and the Explorers Club. The scale model of the floating city can be viewed at the Smithsonian Museum’s FUTURES Exhibition, which is running until July 2022. OCEANIX partners on the Busan prototype include: Prime Movers Lab, Helena, Arup, artist Olafur Eliasson and Studio Other Spaces, Bouygues Construction, Wartsila, Greenwave, Mobility in Chain, Sherwood Design Engineers, Agritecture, Center for Zero Waste Design, and the Global Coral Reef Alliance. www.oceanixcity.com
“Sea level rise is a formidable threat, but sustainable floating infrastructure can help solve this looming catastrophe. We are excited to make history with Busan and UN-Habitat in ushering in humanity’s next frontier,” said OCEANIX Co-Founders, Itai Madamombe and Marc Collins Chen, adding that the prototype would be approached at a hyper-local level, taking into account the rich social, economic, political and cultural uniqueness of Korea as the host country.
There are between 323,000 to 430,000 square-feet of mixed-use programs per neighborhood. The floating platforms connect to the port with link-span bridges framing the sheltered blue lagoon of floating recreation, art, and performance outposts. The low-rise buildings on each platform, defined by their soft lines, feature terraces for indoor-outdoor living, helping to activate the network of vibrant public spaces. OCEANIX Busan will organically transform and adapt over time. Starting from a community of 3 platforms with 12,000 residents and visitors, it has the potential to expand to more than 100 000 residents. The floating platforms are accompanied by dozens of productive outposts with photovoltaic panels and greenhouses that can expand and contract over time based on the needs of Busan.
Busan is a city of 3.4 million residents located on the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula. It is the second largest city in the South Korea and its deep harbor and gentle tides helped the city grow into the largest container handling port in the country and the fifth in the world. It is home to the biggest industrial complex in the ‘Southeast Economic Region’ of Korea. Busan is one of the most important maritime cities of the 21st century, making it a natural choice to deploy the prototype sustainable floating city. A key goal of the prototype is to cultivate a new generation of blue tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers in Busan by creating a vibrant ecosystem through collaboration between international and local partners. www.busan.go.kr/eng
Coastal cities are facing unique demographic, environmental, economic, social and spatial challenges. With nowhere to expand, rapid urban population growth is pushing people closer to the water, driving housing costs to prohibitive levels, and squeezing the poorest families out. “With the complex changes facing coastal cities, we need a new vision where it is possible for people, nature and technology to co-exist. There is no better place than Busan to take the first step towards sustainable human settlements on the ocean, proudly built by Korea for the world,” said Busan’s Mayor Park Heong-joon.
Located in the calm waters in North Port, OCEANIX Busan will be an adaptable, scalable, and inclusive solution for living on the ocean. OCEANIX Busan is an organic extension of the local Korean urban fabric defined by its market culture, urban art village, and celebratory events. Leading artists will help shape the public space. We approach public space not simply as the gap between buildings– it forms a productive bridge that brings people together. The strength of OCEANIX Busan lies not only in its potential for a new model for sustainable communities, but also in building trust between the land and water communities. OCEANIX Busan is site-specific and takes into character the social, political, environmental, and economic aspects of South Korea. This will be informed by Busan’s unique juxtaposition of old and new, a port-city rich with culture, art and trade.
UN-Habitat, the United Nations Program for Human Settlements, works towards a better urban future. UN-Habitat’s vision is to achieve “a better quality of life for all in an urbanizing world”. UN-Habitat works in over 90 countries to promote transformative change in cities and human settlements through knowledge, policy advice, technical assistance and collaborative action. UN-Habitat collaborates with governments, intergovernmental, UN agencies, civil society organizations, foundations, academic institutions and the private sector to achieve enduring results in addressing the challenges of urbanization. www.unhabitat.org
“Sustainable floating cities are a part of the arsenal of climate adaptation strategies available to us” said the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, stressing that the battle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals would be won or lost in cities. “Instead of fighting with water, let us learn to live in harmony with it. We look forward to developing climate adaptation and nature-based solutions through the floating city concept, and Busan is the ideal choice to deploy the prototype,”
The neighborhood is embedded with six integrated systems that generate energy needed on-site, treats and replenishes its own water, reduces and recycles resources, and provides innovative urban agriculture to fulfill a local plant-based diet. Pedestrian-friendly paths accommodate autonomous vehicles, replacing all fuel-based cars with electric and shared mobility, reducing carbon emissions, and promoting a healthy lifestyle. The platforms provide regenerative living surfaces creating habitats that filter and clean polluted port water. Each platform has three performative petals, which are edges that provide access to the water, regenerate habitat, and provide seating and gathering spaces facing the waterfront.
“OCEANIX’s modular maritime neighborhood will be a prototype for sustainable and resilient cities,” said Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director of BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “As our first manifestation of this new form of water-born urbanism, OCEANIX Busan will expand the city’s unique character and culture from dryland and 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.”
Low-rise buildings are distributed to balance weight evenly; a five-level datum creates a low center of gravity and resist wind. Floating and rooftop photovoltaic panels harvest energy for the neighborhood. Large winter gardens provide temperature-controlled environments to grow food and provide respite from Busan’s cold-winter months. Screening and salt-tolerant vegetation provide shade and lower cooling costs in the hotter summer-months. Locally-sourced materials, including wood – a 100% renewable material that is both strong and light – create lightweight buildings that will age with character and maritime-appeal. Building forms will be tuned to maximize solar capture and create comfortable indoor-outdoor spaces.
