Saturday, November 4, 2017

Seasteading community may be reality by 2020

Seasteaders to bring a libertarian floating community to the South Pacific - Archpaper.com - Audrey Wachs, The Architect's Newspaper:

October 27, 2017 - "Right now, engineers, scientists, and officials from one country in the South Pacific are hashing out ... an ambitious experiment in aquatic living that’s shaped by libertarian dreams, a pragmatic response to climate change, and a novel architectural experiment.

"'Seasteaders want voluntary societies based on choice, not force,' said Joe Quirk, Seasteading Institute communications director and author, in a YouTube video on the subject. The San Francisco-based organization is on the front lines of the seasteading movement, a Libertarian-influenced crusade that borrows from the language of the American frontier to frame its freewheeling settlement at sea. Decentralized dwelling, the thinking goes, permits members to join or leave the autonomous association at will by simply detaching their dwellings and floating off,... If this sounds far-fetched, well, the first seasteaders may hit the water in just a few years.

"The community could be afloat soon — like, 2020 soon. The Floating Islands Project, as it is officially known, ... found a partner in French Polynesia, an island country in the South Pacific. This January, French Polynesia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Seasteading Institute in San Francisco to build a floating island prototype. The project, off the coast of Tahiti, has to demonstrate it won’t adversely impact the environment, and show what it will contribute to the island’s economy, and then the nation will establish an offshore economic zone for the seasteaders.

"Although seasteading’s libertarian ideals perhaps make French Polynesia — well, any nation — an unlikely partner, ... the country’s thousands of islands are flat and narrow, a topographic combination that is particularly susceptible to climate change. Floating islands could be a vital survival strategy if (but really, when) the seas rise. In turn, the area’s shallow water and ocean conditions that don’t include high waves make the current technology — which has been pioneered on flat water — more adaptable to ocean conditions.

"By the end of this year, the Institute, which was founded in 2008 by libertarian activist Patri Friedman, is working with French Polynesian officials to pass a seazone act. If the rules pass, the group will head to Tahiti to develop a pilot program....

"Dutch firm DeltaSync has built a prototype on a lake in Rotterdam. The Floating Pavilion Research suggests that buildings up to 164 feet (15 stories) tall can be built on the seas and are able to withstand storms and choppy waters. Four years ago, DeltaSync debuted a preliminary plan which estimated that a series of platforms for 20 to 30 people would cost around $15 million. With one-fifth of the space reserved for open greenery, the firm estimates living space would cost about $500 per square foot, which is just over half as much as the average price per square foot in New York City....

"It’s no surprise that the project has — or had — high-profile fans in Silicon Valley. Gawker shutter-downer and Trump supporter Peter Thiel funneled a cool 1.7 million dollars into the initiative, but has since dismissed the concept as 'not quite feasible.' Quirk and others at the Institute have a new company, Blue Frontiers, whose mission is to develop and build the floating seabeds."

Read more: https://archpaper.com/2017/10/seasteading-institute-floating-libertarian-ocean-cities/#gallery-0-slide-0
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