Ideas for designing and building cities on the water may seem like paradoxical science fiction, but the first floating dwellings date back to the Neolithic period. Floating gardens, public constructions and residences began to appear as early as the 14th century and lay the foundations for many of modern proposals. Today, more than three million people already live permanently above the surface of the water and even more live near the water element, which confirms the familiarity of man with it. In recent years, architects and engineers-researchers / builders have been publishing their own proposals in response to the social issue of rapid global population growth, the need to create new social and political changes but mainly the potential effects of climate change, with the main problem of sea level rise.
This paper investigates how, when and for what reasons people chose to expand on the water, the pros and cons of this lifestyle and how it evolves to this day. This research is carried out by understanding the older settlements and analyzing the newer plans and technologies that can be applied to them to provide drinking water, food and energy.
In the first chapter, reference is made to the importance of water and how it influenced the development of civilizations.
In the second chapter, a review of the evolution of floating structures from the 14th century is made.
In the third chapter, the forms of constructions in water are analyzed, as well as for what purpose they were used.
In the fourth chapter, the advantages and disadvantages of floating structures are presented, as well as their necessity in many cases.
In the fifth and sixth chapters, we will take a look at the study of The seasteading Institute, in collaboration with DeltaSync, in order to learn about the design goals, local conditions and challenges that a city in the water has to face.
In the seventh chapter, we will analyze some of the design proposals that have been published so far and finally we will come to the conclusions of this research.
