Climate change is an undeniable reality that is becoming increasingly relentless before our eyes. It is no longer possible to deny that global warming is wreaking havoc across all latitudes of the world. That’s why companies like the Japanese firm N-Ark are striving to develop projects that allow us to adapt to climate change. Dogen City is their main and most ambitious project, proposing the creation of a maritime city to withstand the rising tides caused by climate change.
N-Ark is a Japanese firm founded in 2021. Initially, their focus was on creating floating farms. However, with the growing climate crisis, their purpose has completely transformed to address the challenges of adapting to climate change. Under their concept of New Ocean, they are seeking to create multidisciplinary teams of experts to take the negative situation and use it as an opportunity to make positive changes, or at least that’s what they explain on their website.
An Adaptable Floating City
Along the way, they have designed Dogen City, which could accommodate from 10,000 to 30,000 residents, according to its developers, and would be completely adaptable to climate change. The floating city is divided into three components. The first is a habitable ring that creates a bay to protect residents from tsunamis. This would be tiered to accommodate food and infrastructure beneath the habitable areas. Additionally, the space occupied by residents could be reconfigured for the necessary urban functions of the community.
The second level would consist of a high-tech data center cooled by ocean waters, while the center would house the city’s operating system, as well as much of the medical services. As part of these, a small medical care city, a DNA bank, and a research center are planned, along with surgical facilities that would also be underwater. According to N-Ark, the idea of creating them underwater is to reduce energy costs and efficiently use space on the surface.
“I thought it would be great if we could create a city where people can naturally improve their health by living in a city designed from the ground up to be advantageous for disease prevention,” shared Yuichi Tei, graduate professor at the University of Tokyo and one of the developers of Dogen City.
But a floating city, no matter how much technology it develops, cannot survive without food. To address this, the Japanese firm proposes using regenerative aquaponics and efficient resource circulation. Currently, N-Ark is researching to harness nutrients available in seawater so that crops can grow successfully in an adaptable soil environment. For now, the floating city that promises to be completely adaptable to climate change exists only on paper. While the Japanese company is already working on the technologies that will allow it to build its city, for now, it is just a futuristic utopian project.
This story was written in Spanish by Alejandra Martínez in Ecoosfera.