Future floating community for Singapore 2030

Abstract

The subject of the thesis is “Future Floating Community for Singapore 2030”. As a starting point the thesis concentrates on creating one visionary floating community concept for Singapore 2030.

Urban development in highly populated coastal cities, high land prices, dense infrastructure and global warming with raising sea level scenarios can put even more pressure towards floating community developments. This kind of situation and pressure can be noticed in Singapore where the sea level has been steadily raising 3mm a year over the past 15years and has already influenced Singapore officials to countermeasures for the future.

Singapore has one of the highest population densities in the world. Singapore officials are respectively trying to keep the limited natural resources and recreational spaces in shape for the future generations. Singapore government has approved sustainable future goals for 2030 and beyond like the “Sustainable Development Blueprint”. The future land use plans for Singapore predict massive land reclamations for 2030 and beyond meaning that more land will be reclaimed from the coastal areas of Singapore. These land reclamation projects can be ex-pensive and put great environmental pressure on near shore water areas where the most diverse marine ecosystems are located. By developing sustainable floating communities especially for living and housing purposes the increasing population and shortage of land for Singaporeans could be helped for the future generations 2030 and beyond.

There are various driving forces behind the thesis. First, the Cradle to Cradle Building Charter philosophy gave the environmental design principles for the concept design. Second, the visionary concept development methodology gave guidance how to input future development into the concept. Third, the design background research with examples of floating community cases, review of current developments, system design background and background of Singapore as a possible site for the concept lead the thesis work towards one scenario with features intended to meet the future challenges of Singapore as a partly floating living environment in 2030 and beyond.