Lilypads: Cities of the future?

Makenshi

Makenshi

Ahoy, ye salty dogs!
Now everyone's talking about climate change and how the water levels will rise, and inevitably flood the earth. But how will humans of tomorrow be able to cope with such difficulties?

A Belgian guy named Vincent Callebaut may have the answer.

Gentleman, I give you the Lilypad:

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http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/06/16/lilypad-floating-cities-in-the-age-of-global-warming/

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/06/16/lilypad-floating-cities-in-the-age-of-global-warming/

The lilipad is basically a floating futuristic city designed to provide shelter for 50,000 people.

Perhaps the most interesting is this:

Biomimicry was clearly the inspiration behind the design. The Lilypad, which was designed to look like a waterlily, is intended to be a zero emission city afloat in the ocean. Through a number of technologies (solar, wind, tidal, biomass), it is envisioned that the project would be able to not only produce it’s own energy, but be able to process CO2 in the atmosphere and absorb it into its titanium dioxide skin.

Each of these floating cities are designed to hold approximately around 50,000 people. A mixed terrain man-made landscape, provided by an artificial lagoon and three ridges, create a diverse environment for the inhabitants. Each Lilypad is intended to be either near a coast, or floating around in the ocean, traveling from the equator to the northern seas, according to where the gulf stream takes it.
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While we may not see these in production anytime soon, it is an interesting concept that may see light in the future, or at least be used in future sci fi stories.

Discuss. :postviper:
 
I could only imagine the impact a rogue wave would have on a floating city of 50,000.
 
A rogue wave would pwn every last being in there. Obviously the best thing to do is move to the moon.
 
Yes, rogue waves would totally fuck that shit up. This is a classic example of dumbass architects having no clue about marine engineering or oceanography. Why did you link to the same article twice?

Also, where would they get the food from? There's barely any fish left in the ocean, this certainly won't help. These things can't be self-sustainable. Calling it "zero-emission" is retarded. Imagine how much emission you'd need to build one of those things. We're much better off just building a huge colony ship in space and completely negate the effects of global warming.

Why would this be considered "the future of Humanity"? There's about 8 million people living in New York City alone (today). That's 160 waterlilies. Then there's Tokyo, Beijing, London, Paris. Pretty crowded oceans.

And finally,

Now everyone's talking about climate change and how the water levels will rise, and inevitably flood the earth.
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citation needed
 
Maphusio said:
I could only imagine the impact a rogue wave would have on a floating city of 50,000.
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I'm neither an expert in shipbuilding nor in marine weather, but I'm not sure if what we perceive as large waves would capsize such a large object. As long as the structure is sound then the force of most waves will be averaged out, and the motion during a storm would most likely to be felt as a slow up and down motion of the whole craft. These waves wouldn't be catastrophic is properly built with modern standards and technology. Certainly not a pleasant experience for those on board. I've never heard of a story of large aircraft carrier or shipping vessel sinking due to a stormy weather.
 
I'd like to move there. And take command... I'd form my own Lillypad society, full of folks to do my bidding.

It'd be great :).
 
the waves arent by any means a problem. The population issue is much worse, plus, the technologies necessary to that place be self-sustainable, without any external intervention would have to be like 500 years ahead of current tech. I don't think we have that time. Even space colonization, which is something I think its still pretty far to become reality, is more viable than that.
 
what about underwater? and i dont mean thousands of feet down, but as higher as possible.

Or a mix.
 
Actually, why that necessity to live underwater or float over it? Everyone knows that global warming is going to raise sea levels, but I never heard they are going to flood every corner of earth on the planet, thus, people can still live over earth. The real issue is that its going to have less space to people live, but not ANY space.
 
radiatedheinz said:
Actually, why that necessity to live underwater or float over it? Everyone knows that global warming is going to raise sea levels, but I never heard they are going to flood every corner of earth on the planet, thus, people can still live over earth. The real issue is that its going to have less space to people live, but not ANY space.
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It's in humanity's best interest to be able to colonize every type of environment possible, should the shit hit the fan.
 
Space is more viable. And negates weather.

But then there's radiation, and micro meteorites.
 
i would be far less worried about rogue waves, and more about tsunamis...


and those tsunamis are why colonizing underwater ... in fact colonizing water period are a huge issue.
 
TheWesDude said:
i would be far less worried about rogue waves, and more about tsunamis...


and those tsunamis are why colonizing underwater ... in fact colonizing water period are a huge issue.
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How come? A tsunami is barely felt in the open ocean, they get big only when they are close to the shore.
 
on the surface they are felt a couple miles from the shore, like 5-10 miles out

under the ocean, thats where they are felt...


so while it is possible to colonize the surface a few miles off shore with these floating cities, they would experience some issues with larger storms.

where its not too uncommon to have waves upwards of 20-30 feet or higher.
 
Ummmm, you guys do know that we already have things like these, and these would likely be built in dammed and diked areas.


Though, if they made it a perfect sphere and gave it a ballast, this thing could just float happily through the ocean.


Plus, don't expect any of the people here to gain entry to any of these.

These things will probably be used only by the elite's elite. Upper classes would probably use it as a sanctuary from all the "great unwashed" after an economic collapse.

Because of that, I want to see a Titoist Communist Lilly Commune with Nukes respond to such bourgeoisie constructions. Also, lazer turrets would be nice. And trained dolphin suicide bombers.


Yeah, these things are ridiculously vulnerable to terrorist attacks. If these are built, expect a future full of great entertainment.
 
yeah, imagine the most richer people of the world hiding and living the life in their underwaters spheres, pretending the world is fair and humanity can build itself again, and poor-ex-middle-class people living in wannabe farms, desolates towns and tents, almost without any drinkable water and vegetables, then discovering that powder can still be made, some weapons are still abandoned some places, and the number of people out of water is pretty much higher than the number of goddamn people from the ex-governments, international corporations important people and family and the pope and his friends living in lilipads (or things like that)

Thinking that most of people who survives to the extreme conditions of global warming in the future are going to be our children (sons of middle class people who could afford education and wealth enough to provide life to their children, but had not enough political status and money to go to one of these underwater shelters), most of them maybe would have enough know how to make bombs and weapons strong enough to break the lilipad defenses, and probably willpower to do so, if they know that there are people living in far better conditions than themselfs. The only ? in all of this, is figuring out if they would have enough resources to do that kind of weapons. But I think they would, probably lots of military stuff would be abandoned in lots of places.

EDIT: well, I just forgot one thing: if this thing is underwater, and its too deep, theres no way post-apocalypse-global warming-humans could reach it, unless there's still subs.
 
My mind was somewhere in the zany RED ALERT universe but whatever.

I also have a theory, that the loc ness monster is actually a submarine. Driven by bigfoot.
 
iridium_ionizer said:
Maphusio said:
I could only imagine the impact a rogue wave would have on a floating city of 50,000.
Click to expand...
I'm neither an expert in shipbuilding nor in marine weather, but I'm not sure if what we perceive as large waves would capsize such a large object. As long as the structure is sound then the force of most waves will be averaged out, and the motion during a storm would most likely to be felt as a slow up and down motion of the whole craft. These waves wouldn't be catastrophic is properly built with modern standards and technology. Certainly not a pleasant experience for those on board. I've never heard of a story of large aircraft carrier or shipping vessel sinking due to a stormy weather.
Click to expand...

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMOKQL26WD_index_0.html

Freaks3.jpg


2272295064_94a1b17bd8_b.jpg


disaster2007.Ital.Florida7.GIF


You've never heard... you never looked.
 
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