OCEANIX Floating City Prototype, Busan, South Korea

OCEANIX Floating City Prototype

OCEANIX Busan is the world’s first prototype of a resilient and sustainable floating community. Transsolar was a key member of the integrated design team developing the concept design for three interconnected platforms: lodging, research, and living. The 30,000 m² eco-lodging platform provides harbor-view guestrooms, organic dining, communal terraces, and skylit greenhouse amenities. The 37,000 m² co-working and maritime research hub invites the community into a shared winter garden. This mid-door central atrium provides respite from Busan’s cold-winter months and grows food in a forest of hydroponic towers for all to enjoy. The 34,000 m² village of residential buildings and local cultural programming is complemented by the community backyard in the heart of the platform, encouraging gathering between residents.

Transsolar led the development of a climate-responsive energy concept targeting annual net zero energy use, no fossil fuel use, and self-sufficiency for up to seven days. Loads are minimized by maximizing the use of outdoor and mid-door spaces such as the research winter garden, calibrating the facades of each platform program to its specific needs, and applying a range of state-of-the-art architectural technologies.

Efficient systems support the passive strategies and are highly integrated in the overall sustainability ecosystem of the platforms – for example, the energy use of closed-loop water treatment systems is considered in the overall energy balance, as is the energy generation potential of biogas from the water treatment process. Hydronic tubing integrated in the hull allows the platform itself to act as a giant closed-loop heat exchanger with the ocean for high-efficiency heating and cooling.

A mixture of on-site energy sources including building-mounted photovoltaics, floating photovoltaics (integrated with rainwater storage), and micro wind turbines meet the annual energy use. A different energy storage technology is proposed for each platform to support the self-sufficiency goal while exploring the best technology for future Oceanix platforms.