Busan, South Korea
The Busan Metropolitan City of the Republic of Korea, UN-Habitat, and OCEANIX today signed a historic agreement to build the world’s first prototype sustainable floating city. After COP26, European Prize for Architecture laureates Bjarke Ingels Group seek to innovate breakthrough solutions for coastal cities threatened by sea-level rise.
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 100 kilometers of the coast, and 90 percent of megacities worldwide are vulnerable to rising sea levels.
The floating city is envisaged as a flood-proof infrastructure that rises with the sea and produces its own food, energy, and freshwater with fully integrated zero waste closed-loop systems.
“Sustainable floating cities are a part of the arsenal of climate adaptation strategies available to us. Instead of fighting with water, let us learn to live in harmony with it. We look forward to developing nature-based solutions through the floating city concept, and Busan is the ideal choice to deploy the prototype,” 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.
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 Mayor Park Heong-Joon.
Busan is one of the most important maritime cities of the 21st century, making it an
attractive location for the prototype. Busan is also bidding for World Expo 2030.
“Sea level rise is a formidable threat, but the 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 the co-Founders of OCEANIX, 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.
Project: OCEANIX City
Architects: bjarke ingels group (BIG)
Collaborators: MIT Center for Ocean Engineering, Mobility in Chain, Sherwood Design Engineers, Center for Zero-waste Design, Transsolar Klimaengineering, Global Coral Reef Alliance, Studio Other Spaces (Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann), Dickson Despommier
Partners-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Sundlin
Project Leaders: Alana Goldweit, Jeremy Alain Siegel
Team: Andy Coward, Ashton stare, autumn Visconti, Bernardo Schuhmacher, Carlos Castillo, Cristina Medina-Gonzalez, Jacob Karasik, Kristoffer Negendahl, Mai Lee, Manon Otto, Terrence Chew, Thomas McMurtrie, Tore Banke, Tracy Sodder, Walid Bhatt, Will Campion, Yushan Huang, Tore Banke, Ziyu Guo
