UNDERWATER & FLOATING CITY
The ability to build without land presents an entirely different sphere for living, where water becomes the landscape and townscape.
Underwater and floating development offers a sea of possibility, and the last few years have seen a proliferation of new underwater and floating architecture projects around the world. Underwater projects can be built on land and placed in the water once complete, or constructed while the water is temporarily held back from the site with dam-like structures. In either case, careful engineering is required to keep the structures strong and water tight. Floating structures have a longer history, but more recently have been growing in scale, with entire office buildings now resting on barge-like floats.
The Underwater and Floating City is at the cutting edge of water living, claiming new spaces for people and providing maximum proximity to the water.
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Floating Canopies
Canopies
KBN Services
Floating canopies, a playground for Horizontal lines chasing each other. While shadows will be cast, comfort, shelter, thresholds, and boundaries, will be provided. Decorations will fill the “Under a Roof” with a jolly atmosphere. Twinkle light, the warmth, Holiday songs, the background. While extending on the water, reflections will spark, with joy and love!
KBN is a New York/London-based Architectural and Engineering practice dedicated to thoughtful design solutions that seek our client’s expectations while striking a balance with project constraints. The practice works collaboratively with a variety of clients in both the private and public sectors. The approach to the discipline is devoted to a coordinated process for the delivery of multiple scopes that accommodate a varying degree of complexity and budgetary constraints.
The versatility of the team creates room for establishing long-lasting relationships with our clients and industry peers. While the practice ethos is devoted to the constant development of spatial components and their buildability, the focus remains the dedication to exploring construction outcomes.
Case Study: Lac-Megantic, Quebec, CA
Nestled in between the picturesque landscape of Lake Megantic, Quebec. The design intent is to embrace the seasonal changes by integrating nature into the built environment. The guesthouse emerges from the hard landscape, slowly forming a transition between nature and
architecture. The palette of material selected is blackened timber, concrete, blackened steel, and glass to create a
neutral backdrop for the surrounding landscape.
Lemonade Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Rockwell Group
The Lemonade Lighthouse overlooks a wonderland of sweet lemon-suckle forests and meandering, undulating terrain. Carnival rides, swimming holes, a fishing pad, and floating performance stages with ocean views offer intimate retreats and celebratory spectacles to be shared. Above it all, a glowing lighthouse is a beacon, refuge, and prospect.
Rockwell Group is an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm founded by David Rockwell in 1984. Inspired by theater, technology, and high-end craft, the 300-person firm creates a unique narrative for each project, from restaurants, to hotels, airport terminals, theaters, universities, museum exhibitions, and Broadway sets.
Case Study: East River Park
East River Park was a project conceived by Rockwell Group and Diller Scofidio + Renfro for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “Vision for Lower Manhattan” in 2002. We envisioned a downtown Central Park that would be a destination for locals and visitors. The concept took full advantage of the unique condition of Manhattan’s waterfront to develop a powerful public space along the East River. It mixed commercial and cultural activities including a hotel, a Cirque du Soleil theater, and more. A key feature was a floating meadow that disengages from the site for special events and floats into the harbor.
Raindrop Art Museum
Museum
Louise Braverman Architect
The Raindrop Art Museum is designed to display art in the context of shoreline flooding associated with climate change. Art is safely exhibited beneath an aesthetic, pedestrian-centered, green roof park that sustainably absorbs and shifts water toward an ever-changing street level. The glazed street façade is conceived to reveal art within, create exterior seating and shed water.
Louise Braverman Architect is an internationally acclaimed architectural studio that is committed to designing architecture of art + conscience. Practicing locally and globally in exceptionally diverse settings, the firm has consistently taken on the challenge to design impactful projects that merge aesthetics with sustainable community engagement.
Case Study: Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso
Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso literally and figuratively breaks new ground in its northern Portuguese town of Boticas. The art museum merges landscape and architecture into a forward-thinking sustainable building for it is divided into two distinct but connected parts, an urbane cultural structure facing the newly built municipal building and a green-roof park covered below-grade exhibition hall facing the adjacent pastoral rolling hills. The design of the exhibition space literally reduces its carbon footprint. It is carved out of the natural hillside which is then retained by cyclopean walls composed of re-cycled stone
reclaimed from the excavation of the site.
Hovering Saturn
Housing
David Ling Architect with Roland Pan
Hovering Saturn is a floating residential structure designed for people to thrive in the middle of the ocean. It is composed of two floors above water and one floor underwater with an outdoor ring surrounding the sphere. The house incorporates both a water desalination system and a solar energy storing system. The center structure self balances itself mimicking a roly-poly. Instead of confronting nature head-on, the design harmonizes with its ebbs and flows, utilizing its power to our advantage. By embracing this approach, we can not only survive but also thrive in even the harshest of environments.
David Ling Architect is an international award-winning practice composed of exhibition spaces, creative offices, high-end retail and high-end residences. Combining his experience he has added floating habitation in his research. The Essence of Ling’s Architecture is the sculptural integration of space, form, light and function enriched by materiality. David Ling’s ultimate goal is to create something never said before, in a timeless manner.
Flying above rising sea levels
Housing
David Ling Architect with Isabella Weigel
In response to rising sea levels and climate change, adaptation to the surrounding coastal environments is critical. The idea behind this project is to source and repurpose a decommissioned aircraft from an airport, within a close radius to site, and reconfigure the vessel to create a floating dwelling. The concept is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; units interlock to form a stronger, connected environment by adapting and embracing to the subtropical Florida climate. The strategy of this vessel is to embrace the various components of an aircraft and repurpose the vessel in new ways.
David Ling Architect is an international award-winning practice composed of exhibition spaces, creative offices, high-end retail and high-end residences. Combining his experience he has added floating habitation in his research. The Essence of Ling’s Architecture is the sculptural integration of space, form, light and function enriched by materiality. David Ling’s ultimate goal is to create something never said before, in a timeless manner.
SAL
SOUR
Image coming soon.
Today, we are living in a vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. Climate and energy crises, the global economic downturn, and the COVID-19 pandemic urge us architects to re-evaluate our priorities and methods in the generation of signature architecture. Any and all proposals for built environment need to present purposefully viable solutions that address issues around energy usage, material waste, supply chain inefficiencies, and carbon footprint. This project is hence about creating a vessel for change, that is resilient for climate change as much as natural disasters like Earthquake, Flood, and Wildfires.
SOUR is a global design studio with the mission to address social and urban problems. We serve our mission through mixed-methods research, community co-creation, process innovation, and digital fabrication. We bridge the gap between research and design by generating actionable insights. There is enough sugar-coating. It is time we get real and be SOUR. While SOUR is a play on words social and urban, it also represents our attitude. We welcome acquired tastes, embrace the discomfort of the new, and enjoy being in the grey.
The Museum of Architecture is pleased to debut for the first time outside of the UK its hugely popular annual exhibition The Gingerbread City® at
25 Fulton Street in the Seaport
November 18 2023 – January 7 2024
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
BOOK YOUR EXHIBITION TICKET
Join one of our festive gingerbread house-making workshops taking place every day during the exhibition. Advance booking is essential.