These Islands

Emergent ideas for enlargement of territory, defense from climate change consequences and avant-garde housing seem to involve the use of "raft" environments:

- Dubai is currently building several luxury properties on top of artificial islands. Namely the Palm Island below


-Monaco plans to enlarge the principality territory by expanding to the sea.

-Netherlands started building some floating housing projects (instead of new dams). This was the subject of a paper in Nature about 2 years ago. Some of the floating houses:


-Macao and Hong Kong have expanded their territory for long years by building on top of the sea. An interesting ecological project for HK:



- Lylypad - A giant floating city project presented as a solution for the population of vanishing islands like Vanuatu archipelago ones (just do not ask me why the rendering below seems to be done on Monaco coast). The architect is 31 year old Vincent Callebaut, already winner of several important awards,


- Project for the Dead sea


- A floating mosque in Malaysia.

The raft is definitely a trend to watch!