A Belgian architect has designed a very sci-fi-ish floating island that could house people who have lost their homes to climate change and eroding coast lines. It looks a lot like a lilypad. As this is a sci-fi concept that has come up in a number of lovely books I've read (Greg Egan et al) I'd be interested to find out if the science adds up too i.e.
1 Will it actually float? This is a materials question I guess - and with the race for incredibly strong and long carbon nanotubes full on (see stuff on the space elevator), there may well be a timeline for this sort of development too if it's not viable right now.
2 Will it be resilient to current weather extremes that the world is getting used to? I'm thinking tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones and anything else the planet can throw at us.
3 How much will it cost? If the answers to the above two questions don't push the concept out of reality then I can see some very rich individuals commissioning their own islands just for the hell of it. No man is an island - but having one is always a bonus :-).
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
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