Netherlands-based design firm Waterstudio.NL, in collaboration with Dutch Docklands and the Government of The Maldives, has unveiled designs for the Maldives Floating City (MFC).
The project has been in development for over a decade, and will feature thousands of residences, floating along a flexible, functional grid across a 200-hectare lagoon.
Designed in a coral-like pattern, the city will consist of 5,000 floating units. These units will include houses, restaurants, shops, and schools, with canals running in between.
In total, the hurricane-proof city expects to house up to 20,000 people.
The first units are to be revealed this month, with residents beginning to move in early 2024. The whole city is set to be completed by 2027.
Koen Olthuis, founder of Waterstudio, commented: “Floating real estate will provide safety and building space for overcrowded and flood-threatened cities.
“Floating developments will push real estate beyond the waterfront which will change our cities similar to the introduction of high rise buildings a century ago.”
Average prices start at at $150,000 for a studio or $250,000 for a family home, Olthuis said.
Currently the units will be built in a local shipyard, which they will then tow to the floating city.
Once they are shipped to the city, the units will be attached to a large underwater concrete hull, which is screwed to the seabed on telescopic steel stilts allowing it to move smoothly with the waves.
Maldives Floating City is one of a few such projects currently in the works.
In April, the United Nations announced the construction the first floating city off South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan.
Known as Oceanix City, it plans to provide homes for a community of 12,000 people, potentially rising to 100,000, with construction due to start in 2023.
Image credit: Waterstudio.nl
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