Cities at Sea’s Vision : Five Design
Monday, November 30th, 2009The Seasteading Institute, a self-described “society of ocean pioneers” has announced the winners of its first-ever 3-D design competition–five visions for floating a housing development the size of a small town on an ocean platform.
The Institute, founded by Patri Friedman, a 32-year-old former software engineer at Google, wants to make offshore living workable. With funding from a top-tier VC, the Institute eventually hopes to produce open-source blueprints usable by anyone intent on creating their own country. They’ve already produced a design for a $50 million platform.
But the current concepts aren’t intended to be built–rather, it’s an exercise to promote the concept–to visualize what a life offshore might be like. Here’s the five winners, culled from 41 entries:
“Swimming City” designed by 27-year-old Hungarian graphic designer Andras Gyorf, took the grand prize of $1,000. It’s the most traditional of the schemes. Step away the floating platform, and the design could easily be a mixed-use redevelopment of factory lofts in Dallas:
