This book highlights a research-based design proposal which has the purpose of relieving from lack of global food supply. Due to the current overuse of land, it suggests an extension of aquatic food production with floating devices onto the sea. These devices are called SeaOasis because they function as an oasis as closed-loop systems and are therefore highly sustainable.

Best geographic conditions for an extension from agriculture to aquaculture by SeaOasis match with coastal areas with serious or alarming hunger index. The low complexity, low-cost construction and the manageable size of the design is ideal for smallholders to support food security in terms of accessibility, affordability, and diversity of diet. Various configurations are described and coupled with expected revenues for potential seed-funded demonstration projects.

The book presents the entire process from problem statement to design development and the preparation of its implementation. It showcases therefore also the benefits of aquatectural design as an interdisciplinary combination of aquatic architectural design, marine engineering and biology, sociology and economy

Autorentext

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joerg Baumeister has been a practitioner, educator, researcher and consultant for Architecture and Urban Design for more than 20 years throughout Europe, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia and Australia. As university educator with passion for "his" students, he tries to fuse research, higher education and implementation in order to create feedback loops to evolve the fields of Urban Design and Architecture. He founded in 2019 the "SeaCities" research laboratory (SeaCities.org) at the Cities Research Institute, Griffith University to develop water-adapted cities and floating structures. He is consulting governmental institutions on the federal, state and regional level as well as NGOs and private industry leaders to apply his current research interests which comprise SeaCities, ecological cities, affordable housing in serial building technology and design innovation through creative thinking. He is an award-winning Architect and Urban Designer and continues to be an enthusiastic speaker at international conferences. He is DAAD Ambassador and Scientist for Future.

Ioana Corina Giurgiu is SeaCities Ph.D. researcher, currently developing a thesis on hybrid water-based urban system designs. She graduated with Honours from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, and as a certified Passivhaus designer and registered architect, she has worked on a number of Passivhaus and energy-efficient projects in UK and Romania. Her research focus is on decreasing the environmental footprint of the built environment via hybrid designs which create symbiotic relationships between natural and built environments.

Inhalt

1. Introduction; role of smallholders; opportunities for sustainable development

2. Closed loop system; sustainable resource use; strategic siting

3. Low-cost production and revenue; SeaOasis modules; fractal up-scaling

4. Configurations; communities and implementation; impact and sustainability

5. Result