Redefining Urbanism in Perspective of Climate Change: Floating Cities Concept

This article analyzes the concept of floating cities in the context of increasing threats resulting from climate change. It explores the potential of a floating city concept to provide sustainable and livable conditions on a large scale in response to the growing climate crisis. Specifically, this article considers whether climate change is prompting a redefinition of urbanism and examines how the floating city concept can be useful from this perspective. The analysis draws on ideas related to megastructures, particularly those based on platforms. A pioneer in this field was Kiyonori Kikutake, who in 1958–1963 presented three concepts of floating cities under the name Marine City. His designs were centered around modularity and mobility. Today, Kikutake’s vision is experiencing a resurgence as climate change forces architects and urban planners to rethink traditional cities. Contemporary architects such as Vincent Callebaut and Bjarke Ingels are now gaining attention for their innovative designs of floating cities, which are being closely examined by experts and policymakers. The first part of this article provides a comparative analysis of Marine City with contemporary examples of megastructures, such as the Lilypad and Oceanix projects, illustrating how the concept of floating cities have evolved over the centuries. The question is, which solutions developed by Japanese Metabolists remain relevant and how has modern technology enriched and advanced the concept of living on water? The second part of the article analyzes the potential of floating cities to redefine urbanism in response to the growing threat of climate change. This analysis primarily focuses on the possible interactions between floating cities and the environment. The results show that the challenges posed by climate change are redefining the urban planning paradigms formed in the first half of the 20th century. The floating city concept shows some potential as a viable response to these challenges.