Shimizu mong muốn sẽ xây dựng những đảo nổi đầu tiên theo mô hình này vào năm 2025. Hiện tại, nhóm nghiên cứu vẫn đang tập trung phát triển những công nghệ mới phục vụ cho việc xây dựng công trình của tương lai này.
The Botanical City Concept
We live remarkably convenient lives in cities that have developed along economic lines.
But happiness should be measured separately from material wealth.
Contact with Nature. Time passed leisurely in cultural pursuits. Healthy and comfortable living.
And blending into and living and growing harmoniously with Nature as part of the ecosystem.
We can make a city, like a single plant, that embodies these principles.
Our model of a new environmental city was born from these aspirations.
An Environmental Island Floating on the Equatorial Pacific
A city that grows just like a lily floating on the water.
A city of the equatorial region where sunlight is plentiful and the impact of typhoons is minimal.
A City in the Sky with a Sense of the Sky and Greenery (City in the Sky: A Residential Zone with 30,000 Inhabitants)
A Waterside Resort with a Sense of the Ocean and Greenery (Waterside: A Residential Zone with 10,000 Inhabitants)
Waterside
New Industry Incubation Office and Plant Factory (Tower: A Work Zone for 10,000 People)
Future businesses that fuse Nature and technology will begin.
Tower
Human-Scale Distances and Configurations: An Urban Village That Grows Like a Lily Floating on the Water
A compact village with a walkable radius of 1km is defined as a cell (district).
Cells are added to form modules (cities), which join to form units (countries).
The Technology behind Green Float
We are gathering leading global technologies to do so based on a botanical approach.
Going Beyond CO2 Reduction to Carbon Negative
To create a city that absorbs CO2 like a plant, we will employ environmental technologies to achieve a carbon negative system.
Switch to a Compact City and Conversion of Industrial Structure (CO2 Reduction: About 40%)
- Reduce CO2 through more efficient transportation and distribution resulting from the shift to a compact city.
Energy Conservation (CO2 Reduction: About 30%)
- At 1,000m above the equator, the temperature is around a comfortable 26°C.
- n addition, we will adopt the newest next-generation technologies to eliminate fossil fuel use and increase thermal insulation and facility efficiency.
Power Generation Using Natural Energy (CO2 Reduction: About 30%)
- We will fully employ a range of natural energy sources including space solar power satellites, ocean thermal energy conversion, waves, wind and solar power.
CO2 Recovery and Ocean Sequestration (CO2 Reduction: About 30%)
- The CO2 absorption capacity of the ocean is thought to be orders of magnitude greater than terrestrial forests. We can expect large-scale CO2 reduction and fixation following a global agreement.
A Bustling Botanical City Where People Live in a Harmonious Balance with Nature
Terrestrial Forest —Biodiversity through a mixture of forest and farmland —
We will create a space for a thriving diversity of life through a mixture of forest, fields, waterways, reservoirs and grasslands. In addition, we will place importance on human contact with Nature including making places where people can experience agriculture.
Marine Forest —Biodiversity in coastal waters—
Around the coastal circumference we will create shallows while maintaining harmony with natural ecosystems. Together with water purification and enhancing the biodiversity of the shallows, we place importance on the relationship between natural ecosystems and human activities such as shellfish and algae harvesting.
A Futuristic Recycling Society That Learns from the Edo Period.
The blessings of sunlight and the ocean permit 100% food self-sufficiency by cultivating the riches of the sea and land.
By converting waste into energy, we can create a city that recycles resources.
We aspire to a model for a city for the environmental era that is self-reliant and places no burden on the environment.
We Will Ensure Fundamental Safety in the Construction of the Floating Marine Structure.
We will employ comprehensive urban disaster prevention and a business continuity plan (BCP) to respond to potential natural and urban disasters.
Measures will include the adoption of predictive active control functions for disaster prevention based on weather forecasting and information from wind and wave sensors.
Disaster and Evacuation Measures
Each 100m of height is segmented as an individual unit for disaster prevention purposes. This prevents damage from spreading to other units and keeps fire from spreading. In addition, each unit contains an evacuation area to provide temporary shelter.
Strong Wind Countermeasures
Basically, large typhoons do not cross the equator. However, as a countermeasure in the unlikely case of strong winds, active control vibration dampers will decrease the effects by using sensors currently employed in airports to measure the force of the wind and estimate its influence on buildings.
Wave Countermeasures
Very strong elastic membranes are attached to the bottom of the lagoons around the outer circumference, with the shallows above the membranes around 10m higher than sea level. The water pressure difference limits the movement of the membranes, thus buffering the force of open sea waves.
In addition, 20-30m high seawalls are constructed to handle a worst-case scenario.
Earthquake and Tsunami Countermeasures
Tsunamis are not a hindrance to safety, because their impact in the open ocean is not like in coastal areas. Offshore tsunamis have gentle vertical motion.
Lightning Countermeasures
In addition to lightning rods around the circumference of the tower top, because the structure is very tall, mesh lightning conductors will be placed on the exterior walls as a countermeasure against lightning strikes on the side walls.
Magnesium Alloys: Structural Materials Created from Sea Water
The Environmental Island’s structural materials are magnesium alloys whose primary raw material is sea water. Because magnesium is found not only in ore but also in sea water, if it is smeltable there is no danger of depletion. Sea water is composed of about 0.13% dissolved magnesium by weight, so one ton of magnesium can be extracted from 770 tons of sea water. Because its specific gravity is a quarter that of steel, magnesium has a superior specific strength. In addition, it has gained attention as an environmentally friendly material even compared to other lightweight structural materials such as fiber-reinforced plastic(FRP) because it can be melted down and recycled.
Construction of an Artificial Offshore Ground Structure (Bonded Honeycomb Structure)
The honeycomb structure incorporates hexagonal cells. Widely used in construction and leading-edge aerospace fields, this structure is more than 90% air, making it both strong and lightweight. We will construct an artificial offshore ground structure by linking these honeycombs.
STEP 1
Individual honeycombs are produced on special wave-resistant barges equipped with concrete plants. Approximately 20m wide, 50m tall and weighing from 5,000 to 7,000 tons, they are turned on end and set afloat by equipment at the edges of the barges.
STEP 2
Water is injected into the honeycomb units, to achieve a balanced position. Units are bonded into square groups with other honeycombs with rubber gaskets on bonding surfaces, using water pressure to join them together by forcing the interstitial water out. In addition, high-strength concrete and studs are used as secondary bonding to achieve close coupling.
STEP 3
Once the 50m high floating substructure is coupled and expanded to create an artificial ground structure, construction work on the ground will begin.
Ultra-High-Rise Marine Construction (“Smart” System Float-Over Deck)
We will build the ultra-high-rise tower with “Smart” system float-over deck marine construction, employing the unique properties of marine construction. The building is not erected above the surface. Construction of the framework is conducted above sea level, but as the structure is completed it is temporarily submerged. Once the framework is assembled, it is lifted in one movement using the buoyancy of sea water. Rather than moving people and equipment to the upper levels, we can consistently perform construction at the surface platforms, thus ensuring safe, efficient construction.
