Oceania — The Atlantis Project: And it seemed so practical…
The Atlantis Project, which proposed the creation of a floating sea city named Oceania, began in February ‘93, receiving nationwide publicity […] The project ended due to lack of interest in April of 1994.
The pictures are great.
One of the links from the Oceania site that Deane talked about earlier is the Lifeboat Foundation. The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, dedicated to providing solutions that will safeguard humanity from the growing threat of terrorism and technological cataclysm. Seems odd that they'd think to use something…
My guess is that they never really considered the whole '30-foot seas in bad weather' problem. The city doesn't look rigid enough to take that. You could perhaps design it to be sectional and bend with the surface of the water, but I would find it more than a bit unnerving to look down the street and see the road and houses pitching up and down 20 or 30 feet.
Reminds me of the book Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis. Mid-50's sci-fi about a guy that ends up on Venus, whose surface is mostly water, but has huge floating islands that are flat in calm seas but mountainous in rough seas. Lewis' narrative of getting around on the islands is priceless! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684823829/qid=1101487199/sr=8-1/ref=pdcsp1/103-5650905-5879864?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Practical or not, I would have loved to live there. From the images, it doesn't look like cars were allowed. What an idyllic life...right up until it sank, but still.
I've been to a 'cars not allowed' community. The result? Everyone drives around in electric golf carts, since they still had to get their food to and from the store, haul things from their yachts, etc. I quickly decided that I preferred cars, since they don't drive on the walking paths, and you can hear them coming!
