See The Concept Design For A Floating Ocean City

It's like Manhattan, but isolated in the middle of the ocean. A new Atlantis could be on deck.

May 21, 2014, 4:00pm

There's that season finale of Archer where the spy team travels to a massive, underwater sea lab that eventually floods due to a stray bullet. The concept up a mega-city on water is certainly alluring, but I know my fears of drowning would overwhelm an aqua-tropolis' futuristic charm. Thus, AT Design Office's concept design for a floating island with an area of four square miles sounds both safe and mind-blowing. It's like a manmade Manhattan. And man do the fabrications look insane:

Commissioned by Chinese construction firm CCCC, AT Design Office created the concept, titled Floating City, with hypothetical plans to use hexagonal modules that overlap to create a foundational city floor. Below the floor would be a network of underground walkways and roads that connect the city sections. So habitants would have the option to live both above and below water.

There would also be green spaces both on top of the geometric modules, as well as in the underwater tunnels, allowing the city to be self-sustaining and eco-friendly. According to AT Design Office, "A chimney in the center of a vertical garden provides natural ventilation and lighting to the underwater city. Meanwhile, the vertical garden is also a public traffic hub, which provides a traffic platform for submarines and inter-block passages." Naturally, there's a proposal for a "vibrant floating entertainment area" at the city's heart, too.

AT Design Office's concept plan is currently under review by one of China's major real estate and property investors, China Transport Investment Co. The designer firm could be designing tests on a smaller scale as early as next year. Even if this project is simply hypothetical and a concept design experiment, there has something to be said about a growing interest in water-based cities. Once we overpopulated the continents and raze their natural resources, it may only be only a matter of time until we try and take to the seas. Good luck to the sea-sick inclined.