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Now that we have covered the existing strategies for living in the middle of the ocean, as well as some methods that have been attempted, it is time to visit some ideas that so far remain merely visions. Some of the designs listed below are more practical than others. This list could be quite long, and is merely a selection of some of our favorites:
Here is a comment on a floating city post somewhere on the internet that represents, to me, exactly what is not needed to advance the movement:
Floating city is very feasible. I am a naval architect designed a whole city that can float in very deepwater and do not heave for severe storms. I have a USA patent. My original design has eight wings each 100m x 600 m and it has a center of attraction at the middle with school, auditorium, police, hospital, city hall, court, what not. One wing is dedicated for aircraft landing. Wave energy is utilized for power; all cars are electrical with public transport system. There is fishing, water purification, gardens, agriculture what not. There is a Disney land and there is a Las Vegas on board. It is a cool place for vacation, stay, live and work. Micro Soft, Bill Gate, can keep their employee there and develop software industry there. All the best expert would be on board and live in a place of solitude and peace and enjoy and more productive. No crime and well balanced place. It is completely shelf sustained. Any one seriously interested can contact me at..
Now, his city may be very nice. It may even be a good design of an artificial island city. But our (very rough, very preliminary) cost estimates are $250/ft^2, which is about a hundred million bucks an acre, which puts a price tag on his 120 acre dream of twelve billion dollars. Even MSFT or Bill Gates is going to flinch at that number. A design like this is solving an irrelevant problem: that of designing a 120 acre city.
This problem is irrelevant, because at the point where there is enough money to build and enough people to fill a 120 acre city, the naval architects of the world will be lining up outside the door of whoever is organizing the project, ready to present their qualifications. Since the design cost is only a tiny fraction of the building cost, it is pretty much irrelevant whether the design exists already or not - it can easily be commissioned. It’s as if I said “I have designed the world’s largest aircraft carrier! It will have dozens of high-tech fighters and bombers, a crew of ten thousand, redundant nuclear reactors, and many other great features. Anyone want to build it?”
Now, I’m glad that there are people out there who are so excited about floating cities that they work on designs for fun. I want people to be excited and inspired, and I think that it’s great that the idea of a floating city is so appealing. I’d love to see a 3D model of this guy’s city, for inspirational purposes, a vision to work towards. But it is important not to get distracted and mistake such visions for progress. Progress is getting funding and building working prototypes, it’s functioning business models (pirate radio stations), it’s people starting a data haven on Sealand. Sure, pirate radio and Havenco both failed. But when floating cities happen, they will happen from a start like that, not from a thousand people drawing a thousand designs of a city that will never be.
As of 2004, this was one of the most recent new country projects. Created by Kevin Alexander (hence the name), it is a haven for non-believers, where faith-based promotion is considered fraudulent. It has an unusual government structure: there are no taxes during an individuals lifetime, but upon death, no more than $200,000 can be left to any one heir (excepting spouse(s)). The remainder must be given to charitable organizations which perform all social services normally adminstered by modern governments. Anyone can found a new charity if they are unsatisfied with current ones. The founder believes that this prohibition on inheritance will appeal to independent, self-made individuals.
While we have serious doubts about the appeal and viability of this system, the strength of the small-nation approach is that people can experiment with many ideas and see which work. Thus we wish them the best of luck. Additionally, Mr. Alexander is writing an upcoming book Ten Thousand Nations, which suggests “that humanity is much better off with lots of small governments, rather than a few large ones” [AlexanderUnp]. As we wholeheartedly agree with this idea, we look forward to this contribution to the tiny niche of nation-founding books.
As of 2008, little had been heard about this project for several years. It appears to have gone the way of most such projects: a burst of initial enthusiasm which fades as the enormous difficulty of such an undertaking is realized. It is our job as seasteaders to lower those costs and create a framework in which groups can more easily organize around shared visions of a better society.
Pelagic: Adj. Free swimming, living in open ocean.
While Wavyhill’s time limitations have restricted this to a small (but informative) website [Pelagic] and a small scale model, we are still quite impressed with what we’ve seen. His philosophy is extremely realistic:
“This is a geopolitical experiment on life in a floating oceanic habitat with no mandated societal structure beyond that of a loose, employee owned and operated enterprise. … Many of these projects have been initiated by idealists, with no or vague business plan, expecting the rest of the idealists to rally to the cause and donate the required capital and effort. The pelagic project is not a utopian scheme, they never work. It’s based on profitable enterprise, gradual growth, and being prepared for the worst from people and political organizations
He has a well-thought out timeline based on an incremental approach, and discusses the problems of building, operating, and financing such a project. The basic structure is a large (50ft) ferrocement hexagon, divided into small interior hexagons using cellular concrete. We discuss this lightweight concrete in the design section. Since it floats on the surface, his structure is exposed to wave action, and without a breakwater we don’t think it would be suitable for the open ocean.
In 2003, Wavyhill actually made a 1/12th scale model of his design using a cheap homebuilt foammaker. This may not sound like much, but experimentation and a willingness to start with small prototypes is rare among nation-founders. This is unfortunate since we think it’s crucial to success. While this project is no longer active, we definitely recommend checking it out to see someone else’s version of the incremental, realistic sort of approach which we are convinced is the most promising.
The New Utopia project is a proposal to build a new country on an unused sea mount in the Carribean. Like the Freedom Ship, this project has been able to garner a significant amount of press coverage, especially at the beginning when it seemed viable. Former insiders report that there was significant business interest. Unfortunately, the leadership was not interested in tackling the hard problems that came up, preferring to sell a fantasy. Given what happened with Minerva Reef, we are very doubtful that any sea mount raised above surface level will remain unclaimed by the existing sovereign nations for very long. More importantly, a number of more recent reports have suggested that the project has become little more than a scam [Patri_NU].
Floating Cities are one part of Jacque Fresco’s The Venus Project [VenusProject], which aims to redesign world civilization to be more in line with human and environmental concerns. This includes switching to a resource-based world economy. While we are a bit suspicious of their economic theories, Mr. Fresco has quite an impressive resume. He’s also designed and built a research center for the project, which puts it well ahead of the plethora of similar-sounding visions. Unfortunately, they said we could not use any pictures from their site in this entry because our description was too negative, which is a bad sign.
The Spar Buoy concept [Piolenc2001] is the brain child of F. Marc De Piolenc. The concept is to build a livable structure that is basically a long cylinder that is ballasted on one end to cause the cylinder (i.e. spar) to float vertically. Since the center of gravity is significantly below the center of buoyancy, it basically impossible to tip the structure over. In severe ocean storms, the cylinder bobs up and down with the waves and the cylinder occupants may get quite motion sick, but they should survive.
More recently, Dr. Robert D. Ballard (of finding the Titanic fame) has proposed building a modest ocean habitat that has many similarities to F. Marc De Piolenc’s spar buoy idea. The idea is to start with a ballasted spar and then place a somewhat larger habitat on top. Thus, the difference is that the living quarters are on top of the spar rather than on the inside of the spar. This proposal has the advantage of being quite modest and Dr. Ballard’s obvious oceanagraphic experience would provide a great deal of credence to any investors.
Enrique Perez has come up with a novel idea based on ancient reed ships [Perez2001]. The basic idea is to make the whole flotation system flexible enough that it just bends and sways in severe ocean storms. He has come up with scripts that allow you to compute the costs and buoyancies.
Another project out there for awhile was the Atlantis project. This project has an above average number of pretty pictures, created by architect Jim Albea [ShadowMasons]. Indeed, it was this site that got Wayne Gramlich interested in the concept of seasteading.
Many nation-founding projects and websites focus on pictures instead of planning. The Seascape site takes this to an extreme, as it consists almost entirely of pretty 3D rendered pictures and animations (along with a little flavortext). The result is to showcase artistic skills rather than present a practical proposal. As reader Glen Raphael comments:
_They never quite make it clear why having drink-dispensing robots following guests around the complex is an improvement over the usual alternatives. Sure, it could be cool in a sci-fi sort of way, but it’s ludicrously inefficient. Wouldn’t some combination of drink vending machines, water fountains and human waitpersons delivering your drink order to human bartenders work just about as well and be a lot cheaper, more energy efficient, and more reliable? … One really does get the sense this is more about creating an interesting science-fictiony fantasy environment than it is about making something practical. _
When asked for permission to use a picture with the text above, the project authors commented:
_The site you saw is only an inter-office overview. Seascape endeavors to provide an environment that is responsive to the individual- it makes no attempt to be practical (or impractical for that matter). Does your city know you? Is your city “interactive”? We urge you to “stay tuned” over the ensuing months to see if we distinguish ourselves. Good luck on your compendium of sea-faring environments. You may wish to re-read the “flavor-text”. _
Unsuprisingly, their website has not changed in the ensuing years. While there is nothing wrong with this approach per se, it makes it harder for those of us interested in the reality of floating cities to get taken seriously.
Buckminster Fuller designed a tetrahedronal floating city for Tokyo bay in the 1960’s. He wrote:
Three-quarters of our planet Earth is covered with water, most of which may float organic cities…Floating cities pay no rent to landlords. They are situated on the water, which they desalinate and recirculate in many useful and nonpolluting ways. They are ships with all an ocean ship’s technical autonomy, but they are also ships that will always be anchored. They don’t have to go anywhere. Their shape and its human-life accommodations are not compromised, as must be the shape of the living quarters of ships whose hull shapes are constructed so that they may slip, fishlike, at high speed through the water and high seas with maximum economy…Floating cities are designed with the most buoyantly stable conformation of deep-sea bell-buoys. Their omni-surface-terraced, slop-faced, tetrahedronal structuring is employed to avoid the lethal threat of precipitous falls by humans from vertically sheer high-rising buildings…The tetrahedron has the most surface with the least volume of all polyhedra. As such, it provides the most possible ‘outside’ living. Its sloping external surface is adequate for all its occupants to enjoy their own private, outside, tiered-terracing, garden homes. These are most economically serviced from the common, omni-nearest-possible center of volume of all polyhedra…When suitable, the floating cities are equipped with ‘alongside’ or interiorly lagooned marinas for the safe mooring of the sail- and powerboats of the floating-city occupants. When moored in protected waters, the floating cities may be connected to the land by bridgeways.
There are some similarities between Bucky’s design for a floating city and our current plan. Both have buoyancy was located below the wave action, and both use slopes to give residents more solar area.
The Ocean Technology Foundation has proposed an undersea habitat called Ocean Base One as part of its OASIS research project [OASIS]. 3D images of the design have been featured on Tech TV and The Learning Channel, as well as in several print media outlets. Its main purpose is research, and it is to be funded by foundations, oil companies, the government, and other sources [Behar2002]. They expect to complete funding and begin construction in approx. 2007-2010 [Rappaport2002]. While such claims should be treated with some skepticism, there are a number of points in its favor. OTF is an established foundation, oil companies and government departments have lots of money, and the $75M budget is modest compared to gargantuan proposals like the Freedom Ship.
This project has been proposed by US Submarines, which has succeeded in getting a fair amount of media attention for its personal and tourist submarines. For example, a $20M model was listed in one of Neiman-Marcus’s christmas catalogues. Poseidon is their concept of an undersea resort containing a restaurant, bar, kitchen, foyer, and 20 luxury suites. It would be in 30-60 feet of water, and locations being considered include the Bahamas, Uniated Arab Emirates, and Belize. The interior pressure would be maintained at one atmosphere.
Here is an update as of March 2009, from email correspondence with Michael Schutte, CEO of Brilliant Boats LLC:
The Poseidon project has been stalled for about 6 months due to short-term financing issues related to the financial crisis. It looks like they will be back in business in a few months on this one. The design and engineering is 95% done with a few parts to be reanalyzed in FEA to finalize the construction model. Brilliant Boats was responsible for the design and engineering, as well as interior layouts and systems.
We are now working a semisubmersed offshore platform that will be sited in a national water park in Oman, and an underwater house for a client in Belize.
There is definitely a lot of interest out there for this sector - I have just come back from the Dubai and Abu Dhabi boat shows where we were completely swamped by the media and interested parties. It seems that this idea has finally come of age. The truth is that with the budgets people have to buy toys these days, what we are proposing is just not that expensive anymore. We have recently finished a 60m yacht for which the budget was over 40 million US, and this was a bargain. There are boats in build today that will cost ten times that, and these are toys for individuals.