Venus Project Sea Cities futuristic

Imagine a post-apocalyptic world populated with prefabricated buildings, manufactured on land from “memory metal” that can pop into shape when carried out to deep-ocean building sites. Frankly, sea cities are not that far-fetched in this day and age – except that the architect behind these dreams is now 92 years old and counting.

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Venus Project Sea Cities S-shaped

Living off the grid in sustainably-powered, self-sufficient homes, sea-steading … sounds like something perfectly suited as a response to emerging environmental issues. What were once the implausible Utopian ideals of a young architecture student named Jacques Fresco have evolved into the Venus Project, which seeks to address urban design and home-building issues on an ever-more-populated planet and in a changing global climate.

Much of what these oceanic future cities entail is not as technologically complex as it would have sounded to an early 20th-Century audience. “Homes could be prefabricated of a new type of pre-stressed, reinforced concrete with a flexible ceramic external coating that would be relatively maintenance free, fireproof, and impervious to the weather. Their thin shell construction can be mass-produced in a matter of hours. With this type of construction, there would be minimal damage from earthquakes and hurricanes.”

Venus Project sea cities by jacques fresco

However, the Venus Project goes beyond design – it contains a vision for a cleaner world of peace, prosperity and unity, without even a monetary system as we know it. So is this kind of perfect-world thinking out of sync with the realism (or pessimism) of today? Perhaps so, or maybe we are just a little too jaded. Sometimes it is worth taking a step back and looking at the larger picture even if it seems impossible – designing without boundaries for a moment in anticipation of a world that is never fully built.

About the Venus Project

“The Venus Project is an organization that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative to strive toward where human rights are no longer paper proclamations but a way of life.”

“We propose a fresh, holistic approach – one that is dedicated to human and environmental concerns. It is an attainable vision of a bright and better future, one that is appropriate to the times in which we live, and both practical and feasible for a positive future for all the world’s people.”