Inside ocean garbage patch city of the future – after AI conjures up floating home for future humans
A FLOATING garbage city in the middle of the ocean has been proposed thanks to AI and two creative architects.
Using an AI image-generating tool, an architect duo has proposed a metropolis in the depths of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The project, called Polimeropolis, proposes an autonomous floating city, serving as an alternative solution to migrating human life to space.
It is supposed to be a blend of an eco-city and a smart city in the middle of the Garbage Patch, a collection of marine debris/trash in the North Pacific Ocean.
The model is characterized by a sequence of urban sets in the form of rings, enclosing a magnanimous oceanic lagoon.
Some of the features of this design present themselves as solutions to the ocean waste problem.
The sophisticated design restricts microplastics from passing its boundaries, purifies the water, and achieves a sanitized environment for human and marine life by obstructing the garbage.
The plastic residue will also be utilized to build the cities and they will be self-sustainable relying solely on tidal movement, reverse osmosis, and cultivation of local flora and fauna for electricity, water, and food production.
The concept has been developed by an Argentina-based award-winning young architecture firm Estudio Ficaccio Prieto, concerned about the huge island of plastic waste accumulating by the minute and the rising sea level.
“Lately we noticed that there are some habitat issues that aren’t being addressed, in this case ocean pollution” said Juan Manuel Prieto, one of the architects who conceptualized Polimeropolis.
“Far from any city and existing production models, Polimeropolis seeks to clean up the ocean rather than polluting it.”
The term is an amalgamation of polymers – the objects contaminating the ocean and metropolis.
Prieto and his colleague Clara Focaccia presented their visualizations through drone shots generated in Midjourney, a chat-powered AI tool that produces realistic images through text-based prompts.
The AI artist Maxi Araya spearheaded the technological side of the design.
The firm plans to roll out the design and will put together an interdisciplinary team of experts as the project develops.