How will architecture respond to a world of rising ocean tides, shrinking coast lines, changing climates, and extreme weather events? It’s a huge question, one that will define the work of a coming age of designers.
And so far, some designers have already been attempting to answer it, with an eclectic mix of hurricane-proof beach structures, a pollution-eating hospital, and plenty of skyscrapers coated with farms and trees (for better or worse).
The French design firm Sitbon probes the question from the following angle: what to do with all that water? Their answer: an aquatic pod called Bloom. It’s "a semi-submersible center, moored to the seabed with a system of cables" that would both house researchers and grow carbon-dioxide absorbing phytoplankton. While it’s more of an experiment than a vision for what housing looks like in the future, their goal is to install them in the Indian Ocean as part of an attempt to monitor tsunamis and absorb carbon dioxide.
The creators write: "Bloom wishes to be a sustainable answer for rising waters by decreasing our carbon footprint while learning to live in accordance with our seas. Every factory would have its own bloom allowing it to absorb the CO2 that it created."
And if the environmental mission doesn’t go over with investors, maybe the design can be repurposed as a beach house.