Boston Architects Envision Floating Cities

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As our planet becomes more crowded, city planners and architects are trying to come up with new ideas for future human habitation. We've seen biospheres and proposals for underground housing, but now one Boston-based architectural firm has come up with a conceptual plan that envisages cities that float. Let's have a look.

This is a glimpse of what may be the future of urban living.

It's called NOAH, a fully sustainable floating habitat designed to support thousands of people.

The idea comes from architect Kevin Schopfer, who says he was inspired by the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

He says NOAH is an example of arcology, a design incorporating the principles of architecture with ecology.

[Kevin Schopfer, Schopfer Associates]:
"I began thinking seriously about the notion on how you combine arcology and the technology of floating cities, what should they be? What would they be?"

NOAH would sit on a barge on the river. It would be built from sustainable and recycled material and fitted with thousands of solar panels and wind turbines to generate its own energy.

[Kevin Schopfer, Schopfer Associates]:
"You are as driven to sustainable perfection as you can be and you try every move to make sure that what, the materials you use and how you use them are reacting the right way with the environment."

Schopfer is employing those same design principles in an another disaster-inspired project, a conceptual habitat he calls Harvest City.

In January, 2010 a massive earthquake leveled Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, leaving more than 300,000 people dead and millions homeless.

Harvest City, says Schofer, would float in the bay of Port au Prince as a temporary home for the displaced and center for commerce.