Afloating city, considered the world’s first, is starting to take shape in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean.
Satellite imagery provided exclusively to Newsweek by Maxar Technologies shows the state of construction of the Maldives Floating City, a development of modular floating platforms that is scheduled to be completed in 2027.
The “island city,” the brainchild of the Maldivian government in partnership with the Dutch architectural firm Waterstudio, is sprouting in a lagoon about 10 minutes by boat from the capital of Male.
It is intended as a practical solution to a very real problem facing the South Asian island nation, the world’s lowest-lying country with an average elevation of just five feet above sea level.
The development’s first inhabitants are expected within 14 months, Koen Olthuis, the lead architect on the project, told Newsweek. There’s been a “bit of delay because of some political way finding between Indian and Chinese-oriented economic interests,” but the construction phase is now full-steam ahead.
The city will eventually have some 20,000 residents living in 5,000 homes placed along a hexagonal grid in the shape of a “brain coral” that connects to an outer ring of barrier islands that will act as breakers, according to Waterstudio. Boats will replace cars as the main way to transit both the island and between the mainland. Source: Newsweek
