1. Freedom Ship
In development: This floating “Freedom Ship” is actually a 1400m-long series of linked barges,designed by Norman Nixon. The proposed ship is an integrated city with condominium housing for 30,000 people, an airstrip, duty- free shopping and a rapid transit systems. The complex would circumnavigate the globe continuously, stopping regularly at ports of call. Other projects, such as the
ResidenSea, have similarly attempted to create mobile communities, though they have conservatively limited themselves to the constraints of conventional shipbuilding. In regards to the economic flexibility and “freedom” created by such mobile settlements, these projects could be considered a realization of the avante-garde Walking City concept from 1964, by British architect Ron Herron of the group Archigram.
Length 4,320 ft /Width 725 ft
Height Above Sea Level 340 ft
Passenger Capacity 50,000 residents / 20,000 visitors
Crew 15,000
Hangars for private aircraft
A marina for residents’ yachts
A large shopping mall
A school system offering K-12 and college education
A golf driving range
No local taxes, including
income tax, real estate tax, sales tax, business tax and import duties.
Residents will have to abide by federal tax laws in their home country.
A side view of the proposed Freedom Ship. The largest existing ship in the world, the Knock Nevis, is approximately one third of this length. 2. New York businessman Peter Halmos’ floating village
3. Junk Rafts
Swimming Cities of Serenissima, designed by Brooklyn street artist, SWOON, will float through the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to Venice throughout May 2009
The Floating Neutrinos’s, a nonconformists, artisan family, built this raft made of junk, most famous for being docked in New York’s Hudson Harbor, and set a world record for being the first scrap-raft to cross the Atlantic Ocean (left). Plans for the Floating Neutrinos’s raft that crossed the Atlantic Ocean. (right)
4. Iceberg?
5. Noah’s Ark theme park in Hong Kong
The Kwok brothers, billionaires heirs to their father’s blue-chip Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., are backing a project to build a replica Noah’s Ark as a theme park on a small island in Hong Kong’s harbor at the foot of a busy bridge that connects the city to its airport. Built to biblical specifications, the 450-ft-long hull, will also house a luxury hotel called “Noah’s Resort hotel”, a restaurant, exhibition hall and children’s museum and 67 pairs of fiberglass animals. It has been in the planning for 17 years with 5 Christian organizations. The replica destination is meant as a family vacation spot and is suppose to carry a strong message that life goes on.
6. World’s first floating apartment complex in the Netherlands called the Citadel
Part man-made island, part floating structure, engineers in the Netherlands have begun construction on a bold new project to combat rising sea levels in the space starved country. Called the Citadel, the new development will be the world’s first floating apartment complex. The project will be built on a polder, which is a recessed area below sea level where flood waters settle after heavy rains. There are thousands of these in the Netherlands, and almost all of them are continually pumped dry to keep floodwaters from destroying nearby homes. The Citadel will be designed to float on top of the flood waters keeping the 60 luxury apartments high and dry.
Part man-made island, part floating structure, engineers in the Netherlands have begun construction on a bold new project to combat rising sea levels in the space starved country. Called the Citadel, the new development will be the world’s first floating apartment complex. The project will be built on a polder, which is a recessed area below sea level where flood waters settle after heavy rains. There are thousands of these in the Netherlands, and almost all of them are continually pumped dry to keep floodwaters from destroying nearby homes. The Citadel will be designed to float on top of the flood waters keeping the 60 luxury apartments high and dry.
