Name: How Close Are We to Living in the Ocean?
Uploaded: 2020-03-28T08:54:47.000Z
Duration: 8 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

DO YOU EVER GET THE URGE TO JUST BUILD A NEW WORLD?

TO RE-THINK THE UNSUSTAINABLE PATTERNS THAT LED TO OVERCROWDED CITIES, DWINDLING NATURAL

RESOURCES, AND THE DRAMATIC IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

AFTER ALL, WE’RE QUICKLY RUNNING OUT OF FRONTIERS HERE ON EARTH EXCEPT, OF COURSE,

THAT SALTY ONE COVERING 70% OF OUR PLANET.

WE’VE ALREADY BUILT UNDERWATER HOTELS AND SUBMARINE LABORATORIES,

AN ATLANTIAN METROPOLIS WOULD BE AWESOME.

BUT THERE ARE A FEW REASONS BIOSHOCK IS PURELY FICTIONAL.  INTENSE PRESSURE,

A DISTINCT LACK OF OXYGEN AND LIGHT, MAKE THIS EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE ON A LARGE SCALE.

BUT WHAT WE COULD DO IS BUILD A CITY ON TOP OF THE WATER.

IN FACT, COASTAL CITIES HAVE BEEN EXPANDING INTO THE OCEAN FOR DECADES, OFTEN RELYING

ON DESTRUCTIVE LAND RECLAMATION TECHNIQUES.

BUT WHAT IF WE SIMPLY DESIGNED CITIES TO FLOAT?

FLOATING VILLAGES EXIST ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND OVER THE PAST FEW DECADES, SOME WILD IDEAS

It's not about kind of a rarefied, resort-like, free government, totally independent world

It's really about creating a working neighborhood that could sit within a protected harbor,

90% of the world’s major cities are going to be dealing with the effects of sea level rise

AS IT BEGINS TO SWEEP OUR FOUNDATIONS AWAY, COULD SEA LEVEL RISE FINALLY PROVIDE

THE FOUNDATION NEEDED FOR SUCH AN EXPERIMENT?

ALONGSIDE INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTORS, OCEANIX AND ITS TEAM

OF DESIGNERS AND ENGINEERS RECENTLY UNVEILED AT THE UNITED NATIONS

A CONCEPT FOR A SUSTAINABLE FLOATING CITY.

THE DESIGN AIMS TO SUPPORT 10,000 RESIDENTS, ACCOUNTING FOR FOOD, WASTE, WATER, ENERGY,

We wanted to make sure that we would provide all the resources that the people would need

to really feel like they're part of a vibrant collective system.

The design of Oceanix city is a move away from the very flashy, futurist kind of utopian

It reflects the kind of utopian architectural style that has been developed

maybe in the last 20 years called New Urbanism

to really give that nostalgic neighborhood feel to it.

THE TEAM STARTED WITH A SIMPLE CHOICE: THEY OPTED FOR A PONTOON STRUCTURE,

FOR MORE SHALLOW, SHELTERED HARBORS, OVER A SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE DESIGN

THESE STRUCTURES, BESIDES BEING FLEXIBLE AND MODULAR, ARE RESISTANT TO

PROVIDED THEY’RE DESIGNED FOR THE PHYSICS OF WATER.

For any floating body on a water surface, there are actually six forces that act on it.

You've got the surge force, where an object sort of slides forward and backwards.

You've got a sway, where it slides from side to side.

You've got the heave, where it goes up and down;

a roll or a pitch or a yaw, where it rotates horizontally.

The hexagon just ends up being a great way of approximating the stability of a circular

It really lends itself well to combining into fields, or rings, in order to, when you

combine six of them, create a sheltered harbor.

Then those kind of villages, or clusters, can combine to create an even larger sheltered harbor.

That kind of system of growth continues in a fractal pattern.

OKAY, SO AN AQUATIC,  EARTHQUAKE-RESISTANT BEEHIVE

BUT WITHOUT WORKER BEES AND A QUEEN, HOW DOES THIS COLONY SUSTAIN ITSELF?

You could harness energy if you had a decent wind source through offshore wind turbines.

There's also this technology called OTEC, basically what it does is that it takes the

differential between the surface temperature of the sea and deeper waters to drive cooling

IN ADDITION TO WIND TURBINES, OCEANIX CITY WILL RELY ON SOLAR PANELS AND WAVE ENERGY.

BUT WHAT THE TEAM BELIEVES IS MOST CRUCIAL IS A MIX OF HIGH- AND LOW-TECH SOLUTIONS,

PLUS SOME MINOR LIFESTYLE ADJUSTMENTS BY ITS RESIDENTS.

The plan is to embrace a plant-based diet.

When you eliminate animals from a diet, we can, right off the bat, start saving our resources

We are relying on greenhouses, orchards, and also aquaponics and aeroponics systems which

We are going to reduce the amount of waste we create by having reusable packaging throughout

the island and have as little waste created as possible.

We will recycle, we will reuse, and we will compost.

THOUGH THIS MAY JUST SEEM LIKE A QUICK FIX FOR OUR OVERDEVELOPMENT PROBLEM,

OCEANIX WANTS TO CONSIDER LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS THAT HELP THE MARINE ECOSYSTEM TOO.

You would really want cutouts to allow sunlight to penetrate.

In terms of the pontoon structures, some of them use gill technology that allows water

to actually pass through the structure minimizing the impact on the environment.

We're working with the Global Coral Reef Alliance on a technology called Biorock, which takes

a steel cage, puts a very small amount of electricity into it.

That electrical charge helps attract mineral deposits, which then attract coral and marine life.

By building up reefs, and itself acting as a kind of wave break, it can actually start to help

dampen the effects of storm surge, and waves, and erosion on existing coastlines.

I think what floating structures offer is quite a good intimacy with the water.

There's almost the sense of accountability or ownership of that particular patch of ocean

BUT WHAT IT SEEMS EVERYONE IS AFTER AS THEY FLOAT THESE PROPOSALS…

The modular approach to this design allows the city to flex its muscles in different ways.

And fit the needs not only of the city itself, but of the coastal city that it's adjacent to.

The lessons that we learn on the water, how we're growing food within a more compact

footprint, how we're generating our energy, how we're dealing with our waste are then

lessons that can actually then be exported back to land.

BUT WE WON’T IMMEDIATELY JUMP INTO A FULL-FLEDGED CITY RIGHT OFF THE BAT.

THESE PROJECTS COULD START OUT IN A FEW DIFFERENT WAYS.

If you're talking about satellite installations you would really be looking at the biggest

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How Close Are We to Living in the Ocean?

intimacy

structure

surge

climate