A Dutch multinational company is building a floating city in the Maldives, a tropical paradise of 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean. The city is set in a turquoise lagoon, just 10 minutes from the capital, Male. It will be able to accommodate 20,000 people once construction is complete by 2027. The project, called Maldives Floating City, was designed by Waterstudio and is a joint venture between Dutch real estate developer Docklands and the government of the Maldives. There will be everything including homes, shops, and schools in the city, located in a two square kilometer area of the lake. The design is based on a channel network that runs between the buildings, which look like hexagonal floating structures. According to CNN, residents could start moving into completed sections of the city as early as 2024.
The idea of creating a floating city did not arise out of vanity, but for a practical reason that threatens the archipelago and all its inhabitants. Most of the Maldives lie less than 1 meter from sea level, which means they will be under water by 2100 when the water level is expected to rise by up to 1 meter. However, a floating city could remain largely unaffected as it would rise as the water level rose.
“Affordable housing, large communities, and regular cities on the water could prove to be safe, too. They (Maldives) are going to go from climate refugees to climate innovators,” Koen Ulthuis, founder of Waterstudio, told CNN. , although it will likely be the first idea to be implemented. In December 2021, the South Korean city of Busan approved plans to build a floating neighborhood to house 10,000-12,000 people. The first modular structure has an area of 0.063 square kilometers, with at least 20 more units attached to it over time.