Overcoming boundaries: Olten (Switzerland) has a new landmark - the Aare bridge. The costs of realizing the futuristic project are projected to be approximately 20 billion euros. What sounds like some utopian science fiction is based on the expertise of a research team from Tokyo. Here, the focus is not only on electricity production but also the desalination of seawater in order to ensure drinking water.
The power supply is to be via ocean thermal energy conversion. In calm seas it floats on the surface of the sea and in bad weather it dives down like a submarine. A 15-kilometre long spiral acts as an anchor and links the city with the sea floor. Underwater living is set to take place in a funnel-like pillar or column, housing apartments, offices and businesses on several storeys. “Ocean Spiral”: a city goes on a diving courseĪnother maritime vision is the “Ocean Spiral” project by Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corporation - an underwater city appearing like an iceberg since only the top juts out of the water. Whether this will ever be realized remains to be seen. CCCC-FHDI is currently investigating possible financing. In addition, underwater residences, sports facilities and shopping centres top off the futuristic concept. The floating city is even set to have its own waste recycling facility. A glass shaft in the centre of the construction provides natural light. Not only do they serve as recreation areas but also provide food production and fresh air. The architects’ design also contains green areas in the form of vertical gardens, which are created on and below the water. At docks situated both on and below the water surface ships or submarines can moor in order to facilitate the exchange of goods. Under the name "Floating City” the architects designed an urban island of hexagonal modules which are connected with an infrastructure of underwater tunnels, streets and walkways. In 2014, Chinese firm CCCC-FHDI commissioned architect’s office AT Design Office to design an urban island covering four square kilometres. Maritime gardens in the Floating City China In this post we will outline some of them for you.
Promising advances have already been made for living on and below water. The oceans, which today already account for 71 percent of the surface of our planet, could in future be the crucial habitat for humans. Metropolises are growing all the time but space on earth is getting less: scientists believe that the sea level will rise by 20 to 60 centimetres by the year 2100 because of climate change and will flood more and more land mass.
Since 2011, there is also the online portal Allplan Connect, which offers functions such as user forums, download libraries, continuing education offers, technical support as well as software updates and upgrades.Advancing urbanization on all continents presents major challenges to architects, engineers and city planners. It also supports exchange formats such as STL for Rapid Prototyping and bidirectional sharing for Google SketchUp and Google Earth.
Also the import and export to SketchUp and Rhino is possible.
The Allplan CAD system supports 2D design, 3D modeling, up to component-oriented building model with quantity and cost determination (4D BIM).Īllplan has interfaces to visualization software Cinema 4D as well as to traditional exchange formats (eg DXF, DWG, DGN) and additionally supports the formats IFC and PDF (also PDF/A and 3D-PDF).