Archinect - News

A floating padel court sets sail in Miami Harbor

2024-12-13T17:21:00-05:00

The popular Mexican game known as 'Padel' has landed with a splash in Miami in the form of a new floating playing court space built and designed by the real estate investment venture Yntegra Group.

Their temporary platform in Miami Harbor weighs 84 tons and measures 16.4 x 38.4 x 71.5 feet.

Photo courtesy Yntegra Group

Its presence is a sign of the growing influence of the highly sociable racquet sport of pickleball. The project should immediately bring to mind the experiential appeal of the new (and finally approved) + POOL that’s set to grace New York’s East River at Pier 35 beginning this summer.

Photo courtesy Yntegra Group

The court will remain floating in the waters near the private member-only Fisher Island until May 2025 before being relocated to the Bahamas to spread knowledge of the game there as a permanent attraction for a forthcoming high-end resort known as The Exumas.

Photo courtesy Yntegra Group

Yntegra Group was able to construct much of ...

Chat Architects completes a bamboo pavilion for oyster fishermen off Thailand’s coast

2023-12-28T11:48:00-05:00

Bangkok-based Chat Architects has completed a bamboo fishing pavilion off the coast of Thailand. Named the Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion, and located off the historic Angsila fishing village, the pavilion aims to revitalize the area’s struggling fishing and seafood industry through the creation of a “new oyster eco-tourism infrastructure prototype.”

Image credit: W Workspace

The pavilion is designed to host an oyster-tasting experience allowing fisherman to relay their fishing history and oyster cultivation heritage to visitors, while also serving shellfish cultivated on the scaffolding itself. In addition to its touristic and productive uses, the pavilion also serves as a campaigning symbol for the protection of the area’s sensitive coastal ecology.

Image credit: W Workspace

“The pavilion design draws on and ‘bastardizes’ the widely deployed bamboo scaffolding traditionally used for oyster cultivation,” the designers explain. “When in use, local fisherm...

NEOM announces plans for new man-made island development called Oxagon

2022-12-22T16:42:00-05:00

Plans for a new floating city design that’s part of the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia have been revealed recently, offering a glimpse at the Gulf state’s full vision for a megadevelopment program that includes Trojena ski resort, an artificial island called Sindalah, and centerpiece 110-mile-long smart city dubbed The Line.

The ‘Oxagon’ as it is so-named, is formed by a series of floating squares connected by a network of canals and will contain factories and logistics centers along with housing accommodations for up to 90,000 residents by the time it is completed in 2030. It is strategically located in proximity to the Suez Canal in order to give the country an enhanced position within the global supply chain

Image courtesy NEOM

According to a press release: “At Oxagon’s core will be the adoption of the most advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), human-machine fusion, artificial and predictive intelligence, and robotics, all of which are coupled to a network of f...

$8 billion turtle-shaped luxury yacht could become the largest floating structure ever built

2022-11-28T18:35:00-05:00

The latest luxury boat to hit the market is Pangeos -- named after Pangea, a supercontinent that existed from 200 million to 335 million years ago. And if those seem like big numbers, wait until you hear how many dollars it'll take to construct it: $8 billion, according to designers Lazzarini.

If funded and built, the sea turtle-shaped "terayacht" would be the largest floating structure ever built, spanning 1,800 feet long and 2,000 feet wide. Dubbed a “floating city,” the boat would feature hotels, shopping malls, parks, and ports for smaller vessels and aircraft to connect.

Due to its size, the yacht would require the construction of a special dam that would flood to levitate it before being launched. The designers have noted Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Port as a potential building location. The shipyard would stretch approximately 2,133 feet wide and 1,969 feet long.

The yacht’s hull would be comprised of 30,000 "cells," and its draft would stretch 98 feet. It would be capable of moving at a speed of five knots. The boat’s “arms” would draw energy from the drag and waves that break against it. Rooftop solar panels would also provide power. Unlike cruise ships or other commercial sea voyages, Pangeos wouldn’t operate out of a port or have a set itinerary, "it would s...

Danish-based architecture studio MAST develops 'Land on Water,' a system for floating housing infrastructure

2022-10-21T11:53:00-04:00

Danish maritime architecture practice, MAST, has developed a sustainable floating foundation for building housing and infrastructure atop the water, called “Land on Water.” The project was developed to serve as a solution to increased sea level rise and the growing risks of urban flooding.

Image render © KVANT-1/Courtesy of MAST.

For Land on Water, MAST was joined by construction industry executive Hubert Rhomberg and venture studio FRAGILE. The system consists of modular containers made from reinforced, recycled plastic.

Image: MAST

It was inspired by gabion construction, a method that utilizes mesh cages filled with rubble to create sturdy, low-cost foundations. With Land on Water, the “cages” are filled with locally sourced, upcycled materials that could support the weight of any structure while floating. Materials could be adjusted if weight is added.

Image: MAST

Land on Water also leaves a smaller footprint compared to steel and concrete foundations, which employ toxic anti-fouli...

Cairo’s historic Nile river houseboats are about to be a thing of the past

2022-07-15T14:55:00-04:00

Colourful houseboats anchored along the Nile have been fixtures of Cairo since the 1800s. Last month the government ordered their removal, saying the boats were unsafe and lacked permits—no surprise, since it stopped renewing the permits two years ago. It has recently begun towing them away. Officials are coy about their plans for the riverbank. If the past is any guide, the boats will be replaced by restaurants and cafés, their lush gardens buried under concrete.

As the New York Times pointed out recently, the houseboats carry quite a bit of cultural significance as the site where Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz wrote his seminal 1966 novel Adrift on the Nile and several other classic tomes. Egypt is pursuing an aggressive redevelopment of its ancient capital propelled by private development and plagued by a reliance on materials like concrete that have claimed whole neighborhoods and even a historic watchmaker’s shop in recent years.

A floating city is set to rise off the coast of the Maldives as a solution to sea-level rise

2022-06-23T17:40:00-04:00

A city is rising from the waters of the Indian Ocean. In a turquoise lagoon, just 10 minutes by boat from Male, the Maldivian capital, a floating city, big enough to house 20,000 people, is being constructed.

Called the Maldives Floating City, the first-of-its-kind development is a joint venture between property developer Dutch Docklands and the Government of the Maldives. Netherlands-based architecture firm Waterstudio, which focuses on large-scale, sustainable floating projects, is the architecture firm behind the project’s design. Taking the shape of a brain coral, the city is structured as a traditional boating community, with a network of canals that will serve as the main infrastructure for logistics and gateways. It will consist of 5,000 floating units, along with houses, restaurants, shops, and schools.

Previously on Archinect: Updated design emerges for BIG’s floating city in Busan, South Korea for OCEANIX

The city was conceived as a practical solution to sea-level rise in one of the world’s most vulnerable nations to climate change. Its modular units are constructed in a local shipyard and towed to the city when complete. They are then attached to a large underwater concrete hu...

Hong Kong's legendary Jumbo Floating Restaurant capsizes in the South China Sea

2022-06-23T13:48:00-04:00

Hong Kong's iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant has capsized in the South China Sea less than a week after it was towed away from the city, its parent company said Monday. The restaurant was towed away last Tuesday. The company said it planned to move it to a lower-cost site where maintenance could be carried out. It said that prior to its departure, the vessel had been thoroughly inspected by marine engineers and hoardings were installed, and all relevant approvals were obtained.

The Wes Anderson-like former fine-dining establishment served some rather well-regarded Cantonese cuisine to diners for more than forty years before being closed and decommissioned earlier this month following the Covid-caused economic downturn of 2020. The three-story vessel reportedly went down in heavy seas near the disputed Parcel Islands chain last week while in the process of being towed to an undisclosed “lower cost site,” according to Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises, the management group responsible for the remaining entity.

Hong Kong’s provisional government had been working on “the rebirth of the floating restaurant” before the sinking, but will now have to shift focus to other preservation efforts as the Jumbo reportedly went down in a spot of ocean more than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) deep.

Updated design emerges for BIG’s floating city in Busan, South Korea for OCEANIX

2022-04-27T11:06:00-04:00

Further details have been revealed for the design of OCEANIX Busan, described as the “world’s first sustainable floating city.” Designed by lead architects BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and SAMOO (Samsung), the project will be constructed in the South Korean city of Busan by advanced maritime company OCEANIX in collaboration with UN-Habitat.

Potential scaled-up version of the scheme. Image by OCEANIX / Bjarke Ingels Group

We first covered the project in 2019, when BIG unveiled the project as a utopian plan for floating cities, sparking extensive debate among our community. Late last year, it emerged that the city of Busan would take the lead on realizing the project. Now, new renderings of the scheme offer further insight into how the original utopian plan may manifest.

Initial phase of OCEANIX Busan, accommodating 12,000 people. Image by OCEANIX / Bjarke Ingels Group

The current proposal would see interconnected platforms create a 15.5-acre city capable of accommodating 12,000 people. T...

Norway is building a salmon-inspired floating exhibition center

2022-01-27T14:59:00-05:00

The epicenter of salmon farming in Scandinavia is about to break the waves on an eye-catching new aquatic addition thanks to a creative new convention center design from Kvorning Design & Communication.

A subsidiary of the group named Marketex Marine is behind the scheme that will bequeath Norway’s spectacular Hardangerfjord with a floating exhibition hall they call the Salmon Eye. The 1,000-ton structure is only accessible by boat and is located in the middle of a commercial fishing operation run by Eide Fjordbruk. Marketex was selected for their expertise in off-shore engineering projects but says the Salmon Eye will constitute a new scale in terms of their design experience.

Image courtesy Kvorning Design & Communication

“The implementation of such a project requires the highest level of commitment from each of the participants involved, as nothing remotely similar we have constructed before,” Marketex’s Fjodor Kvitš noted in a statement. “The entire construction is a combinatio...

Busan to take the lead in trying on Bjarke Ingels' floating OCEANIX CITY prototype in 2025

2021-11-30T09:00:00-05:00

In an effort to mitigate the impending effects of sea-level rise on coastal populations through architecture, UN-Habitat and OCEANIX are once again taking the lead with a new prototype for a floating settlement in the South Korean city of Busan.

The buzzworthy pair had previously made waves with a Bjarke Ingels-backed 2019 proposal for a floodproof habitat which has now officially found a home thanks to a groundbreaking agreement with the city’s government.

Now, with almost 50 centimeters of sea-level rise expected for the southern peninsula by mid-century, leaders in South Korea look to the prototype as a guide to extreme adaptation efforts that could help circumvent the challenges caused by an influx of coastal city dwellers overrunning a country of 52 million whose total land area is roughly equivalent to the state of Indiana.

Previously on Archinect: Bjarke Ingels presents utopian plan for sustainable floating cities to UN

The city proposal claims to be designed to withstand a...

Seattle houseboat gets a second life on land

2021-08-11T09:01:00-04:00

A historic houseboat in Seattle’s Madison Park neighborhood is getting new life thanks to a 3-year renovation project from local firm Best Practice.

The firm’s effort expanded the houseboat’s original 1,200-square-foot footprint with an 800-square-foot black metal facade addition that will help an area couple find a more comfortable fit for their growing young family.

Per the architect: “This residence began its life as a floating home on Lake Union! It was transported and firmly affixed to the ground near the shore of Lake Washington, but we still like to think of it as a Boathouse. With a charming street presence, the design team crafted an open interior space with vaulted ceilings, new basement living spaces and a primary suite upstairs in the new addition.”

Best practice turned the existing bedroom into a whimsical space for the couple’s daughter. An open floor plan replaces the clutter of the previous layout and features a vaulted stained cedar ceili...

A circular floating pathway will allow visitors to walk atop Philadelphia's Schuylkill River

2021-05-24T18:35:00-04:00

A captivating, one-of-a-kind structure will allow visitors to seemingly walk atop the Schuylkill River, right along the southern shoreline of Philadelphia’s Bartram’s Garden. Set to arrive in 2022, FloatLab is a large, walkable art installation and learning lab. It is a new project from Mural Arts Philadelphia with support from the William Penn Foundation and is being designed by Boston-based firm Höweler + Yoon Architecture.

The lime green, ring-shaped pathway will change in elevation as visitors walk through it, creating points where one is walking above the water and others where one is eye level with the river. Approaches in architectural design, marine engineering, and naval architecture inform a system of eight ballast chambers below the structure’s surface, which allow FloatLab to remain consistently level and stable as the tide moves in and out.

Image: Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Brick Visual

FloatLab was designed as a means to explore the river and reconnect visitors to...

Would you work in a floating, remote workspace?

2021-04-06T18:03:00-04:00

Trends involving remote workspaces have heightened since 2020. While businesses worldwide learned to adjust and create remote working spaces that work best for them, architectural designer and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Agnieszka Białek, proposes a workspace alternative that may invite polarizing responses. Her project, Enclaves on Vistula River, was influenced by the altered work environments due to Covid-19 and the transition to remote work.

Image render courtesy of Agnieszka Białek / Monolight Studio

Commenting on the potential for home remote workplace fatigue, Białek explains on her project website the proposed concept "becomes a comfortable place for online meetings or relaxing in the new reality of reduced touch. The design provides protection of personal space and privacy for potential users. In times of social distancing, the workspace "creates a unique comfort zone and sense of security." She claims each remote work module can be booked hourly for use d...

Is a future filled with levitating buildings on the horizon?

2019-11-18T15:10:00-05:00

During Dubai Design Week, architect and professor Dr. Georges Kachaamy presented an eye catching project that questions architecture's need for the ground. Through his project, "Rising Oases," Kachaamy proposes a future where individual buildings are no longer tied to their "daily restraints," including the need to be firmly anchored to the earth.

According to the Dubai Design Week website, "The structure is suspended in the air using breakthrough technology, providing visitors with an outlet to disconnect from the city." Part of an ongoing research project that has been in the works over the past decade, according to a recent report from CNN, Kachammy's project, which uses magnetic levitation technologies to levitate scale models above their bases, stunned the design week attendees.

Rendering of one of Kachaamy's levitating buildings. Courtesy of Georges Kachaamy.

Some might view his proposal as implausible, but according to Kieron Monks of CNN, Kachammy is prepared to win over th...

Bjarke Ingels presents utopian plan for sustainable floating cities to UN

2019-04-06T11:26:00-04:00

Faced with the threat of rising sea levels said to jeopardize 90% of the world's largest cities by 2050, UN Habitat convened its first roundtable to discuss potential adaptation strategies. In particular, the dozens of experts, investors, scientists, and officials, were there to explore new approaches to building sustainable offshore hubs for living and working, also known as floating cities.

VILLAGE HARBOR DAYTIME: Socializing, play, and commerce are concentrated around the sheltered inner harbor. Platform edges activate the city with social programs, protect it from the wind, produce food, and dock boats. Image by Bjarke Ingels Group.

CITY FROM ABOVE: The city can organically transform and adapt over time, evolving from a neighborhood of 300 residents to a city of 10,000. Thirty-six 2-hectare floating neighborhoods and dozens of productive outposts create a vibrant community that can expand and contract over time.

The specific proposal was for Oceanix City, a collaboration between ...

A floating university by Berlin firm Raumlabor explores the future of architecture schooling

2018-07-30T16:31:00-04:00

Created by architects Raumlabor, the Floating University in Berlin invites students and experts from all over the world to explore solutions for future urban challenges. It’s said that the things we learn at university today will be outdated by the time we graduate. So what does a learning environment look like where students research cities of the future?

Berlin-based firm Raumlabor have created a floating university running through the summer months to explore new learning environment possibilities. Located in a rainwater basin in Berlin, the temporary structure is under constant development with students, professors, and experts implementing their ideas.

Floating University by Raumlabor, located in Berlin. Image: Raumlabor.

The floating university includes a library, workspaces, an auditorium with a pool, an experimental kitchen and bar, and a water-filtering system. Students are invited from the fields of architecture, design, arts, and sustainable technology to participate in this hands-on program. The University will be dismantled in September with all materials either rented and returned or used for upcoming projects.

Go with the flow: the case for amphibious architecture

2018-01-10T15:27:00-05:00

Unlike traditional buildings, amphibious structures are not static; they respond to floods like ships to a rising tide, floating on the water’s surface. [...] Amphibiation may be an unconventional strategy, but it reflects a growing consensus that, at a time of climatic volatility, people can’t simply fight against water; they have to learn to live with it.

The New Yorker features Elizabeth English, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo and founder of the Buoyant Foundation Project which seeks to promote the benefits of amphibious architecture for homes in flood-prone areas and communities that will experience the effects of rising sea levels resulting from climate change.
"The water gets to do what the water wants to do," English says. "It’s not a confrontation with Mother Nature—it’s an acceptance of Mother Nature."

Carlo Ratti Associati designs a floating plaza at West Palm Beach letting visitors walk on (and beneath) water

2016-11-03T14:25:00-04:00

Using some of the same design techniques used for responsive air chambers in submarines, Carlo Ratti Associati has designed a floating plaza/mixed retail center that will float on and adapt to the water level depending on how many people are currently walking on it. The plaza, which is linked to land via a comprehensive masterplan on the coast of Lake Worth Lagoon, will also include housing (whose property values will hopefully never be underwater). The plaza will also feature "an organic restaurant with its own hydroponic cultivations," making it a potentially self-sustaining enterprise.

The inventive use of underwater vessel technology is, to director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding partner Carlo Ratti, an entirely new way of conceiving architecture. Ratti describes his project as "carving" into the water. He goes on to say that “with this project, we aim to reclaim West Palm Beach’s connection to the natural elements that surroun...

Introducing Bjarke Ingels' floating student housing, "Urban Rigger"

2016-09-22T12:48:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels has found the elusive silver lining in global sea level rise and the European affordable housing crisis in the form of "Urban Rigger," a series of inexpensive student housing complexes that are designed to float in the sea, especially in those cities which have dense urban cores next to the waterfront. The idea here is to provide students with affordable digs that are close to class while simultaneously making the most out of changing climate conditions and post-industrial port repurposing. The first complete Urban Rigger has already been assembled in Copenhagen.

According to an article in FastCompany, "Each unit, which can house 12 students at once, is composed of modular shipping containers. These modules are powered by a photovoltaic array and use a heat-exchange system that draws upon the thermal mass of water to warm and cool the interiors. Meanwhile, an aerogel developed by NASA insulates the interiors."

For the latest on Bjarke Ingels:

Play "Arkinoid" arcade o...

Looking at all sides of the Pier 55 offshore park development

2015-04-09T20:47:00-04:00

For fans of the park, the gift from the Diller-von Furstenberg foundation represented more than the revival of Pier 54. It was a statement that Hudson River Park deserved to be in the same league as the city’s other signature, showy spaces.

More details -- or opinions, perhaps -- are surfacing for the proposed Pier 55 "culture island", which media mogul Barry Diller commissioned Thomas Heatherwick to design for New York's Hudson River Park. Since the plan was first publicly announced back in November, followed by a lease agreement approved in February, plans to make the $130 million development a reality appear to gradually be moving forward.

Previously

Izmir's charming DIY floating docks

2015-02-13T14:15:00-05:00

For months, three architects would meet at the waterfront of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. [...] Eventually it came to them – if you really wanted to bring people in Izmir together, transform the waterfront. But the very idea was daunting: Turkey’s bureaucracy is infamous, and a large-scale project to redevelop the waterfront seemed impossible. So the friends [...] built eight floating docks out of plywood.

Barry Diller Pledges $130M for Futuristic Offshore Park on the West Side

2014-11-17T13:27:00-05:00

After being approached over two years ago about the idea, Barry Diller initiated a design competition, ultimately selecting British architect Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio, famous for designing the Olympic caldron for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Landscape architect Mathews Nielsen will also lend his hand. Some critics of the idea are not happy about the secretive planning and how private funds will be used to construct a public park.

Billionaire media mogul, and largest private donor to the High Line, Barry Diller has pledged $130 million of the $170 million total to build a floating park and performance venue known as Pier 55 off 14th Street in the Meatpacking District. The 2.7-acre park will be located 186 feet off land, and contain wooded nooks and three performance venues, including an amphitheater. It will be an undulating platform set atop 300 mushroom-shaped concrete columns that will range in height from 70 feet to 15 feet above the water.

Waterworld: Koen Olthuis' floating structures, from slums to stadiums

2013-08-29T14:17:00-04:00

[It] is the same technology as we use in Holland. It’s made up of concrete caisson, boxes, a shoebox of concrete. We fill them with styrofoam. So with [these] you get unthinkable floating foundations [...] The house itself is the same as a normal house, the same material. Then you want to figure out how to get water and electricity and remove sewage and use the same technology as cruise ships." - Koen Olthuis

Dutch architect Koen Olthuis sees the future of architecture floating out to sea -- quite literally. Responding to undeniable ecological shifts of rising sea levels and seasonal flooding, Olthuis has proposed floatable-projects all along the social spectrum, designing prefabricated multi-use units for waterfront slums in Dhaka, "amphibious" housing in Holland and Columbia, private island-villas for the "stupidly rich", and foldable Olympic stadiums.

See projects from Olthius' Waterstudio.NL, in the tradition of floating architecture inspired by Dutch history and worldwide realities.

Floating Architecture: Finding Ways to Live With Rising Water

2012-05-31T14:58:00-04:00

There is a saying that "God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland." And for centuries, the Dutch have built different types of barriers to hold back rising water and allow for development. But as sea levels continue to rise, instead of trying to fight the water, Dutch architects and urban planners are taking a new approach: finding ways to live with it.

Startup Ducks Immigration Law With 'Googleplex of the Sea'

2011-12-14T17:06:17-05:00

Blueseed says U.S. immigration law is choking the flow of “bold and creative” entrepreneurs into Silicon Valley. So it’s building a floating IT fortress where entrepreneurs can be bold and creative right next to Silicon Valley without actually setting foot on U.S. soil.