The threat of climate change is looming before us. Sea level rise concerns over 410 million people at risk of losing their livelihoods. Coastal cities are choked with high-rise buildings and traffic-laden roads, consuming land insufficiently. Synthesizing these problems, architects across the world have proposed a potential answer - floating cities. A future of living on water seems like a radical shift from how people live, work, and play. Vernacular precedents prove otherwise, offering inspiration for what our cities could morph into. As world leaders discuss courses of action to tackle climate change at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, ArchDaily dives into the concept of radical water-based settlements.
According to the standard civilization narrative, the first human settlements flourished in the vicinity of water bodies - rivers, lakes, wetlands, and seas. Nomads required water for drinking and hunting, and agricultural communities for farming as well. Land was also most fertile where it could easily be nourished by a water source. As a result, humans established themselves at the intersection of land and sea, building and growing their settlements in either direction. Kampong Ayer in Brunei, Makoko in Lagos, Ganvie in Benin, and the Mesopotamian Marshes provide a peek into a lifestyle of living amidst water. They provide a starting point for imagining how our lives would be shaped by new offshore settlements.
