FLOATROPOLIS

Most of the face of the planet is covered by water. The water and the beaches are a precious resource for cities and their development; in fact, 90% of the large cities worldwide lie along the coast, which offers them cities the potential for significant urban development. However, the proximity to the sea also poses a significant risk: The sea does not only limit the area to which a city can grow and develop, climate change and its repercussions, such as the rise in the sea level, for example, are challenging, even destructive for many coastal cities, among them Tel Aviv. While the world feverishly seeks potential solutions that create resilience, the question arises: What if water is not only the problem, but also the solution?

Building on water is not a new concept – there have been many kinds of traditional construction on water throughout history, but a current and modern floating city is yet to be achieved, and the ideas that have been floated throughout the years have not yet been tested. Such a city will require rethinking the most basic assumptions and principles of urban planning and design, and will thus encourage innovative solutions for existing and new planning challenges.

The Floatropolis project imagines a future of reciprocity between the human and the natural environments – the evolution of planning processes and progress, from those that harm the marine environment to those that nurture it. These reciprocal relations will be created via a shoreside floating neighborhood that will replace the place the Tel Aviv marina, an area that is problematic from a planning perspective, with one that will form an integral part of the urban fabric, and will open new horizons for the growth of the city. Basing the work on the existing urban fabric, advanced materials and technologies which enhance air and water quality, climatic design principles and traditionalism, creates streets that are naturally thermally pleasant. The design of the neighborhood encourages walkability by offering continuous facades and balanced street sections, turning the requirements of floating construction – first and foremost, the conditioning of platform size and construction height on water depth, into advantages that create a hierarchy of private and public spaces, which translate into a tourist attraction that also succeeds to be a quiet residential neighborhood. The hexagon-shaped platforms that construct the neighborhoods increase stability and serve as floating modular building blocks providing flexibility and dynamicity in the future development and growth of the urban grid. Their positioning in the space and unique design, alongside programs dealing with development, innovation, experimentation and nature, will promote public awareness to climate change and to the beneficial potential of floating construction: its ability to radically alter coastal cities, which will be expressed in the transformation of the urban fabric of Tel Aviv. Thus, the floatropolis will position Tel Aviv at the forefront of global technological innovation.