The Sustainable Ocean Living (SOL) tower and complex, designed by Australian architects David John McMorrow and Mario Celik, brings a new possible solution to housing the earth’s rapidly growing population – ship them out to sea.

Three billion new people will be born on this planet by 2050, experts say, posing unprecedented burdens on the earth’s resources. McMorrow and Celik see this as an opportunity to utilize modern technology to create a city that is, exotically enough, located in the middle of the ocean. The pair has designed, in SOL, a city system that is completely self-sufficient. Wave power harnessed through buoys provides the city’s energy, vertical agriculture and ocean fish farms provide food, and a marina with luxury hotels, restaurants and other amenities will make the city an exciting and enjoyable place to live and visit.

The best part? A SOL city complex could exist virtually anywhere. Though this particular SOL tower was designed for a location in the Indian Ocean, 10 km off of the coast of Perth, Australia, the model is ready for replication.

Each city is relatively small, housing 5,000 people in 3,000 living units in a skyscraper tower located in the middle of the marina complex. The architects envision utilizing enough buoys and other power-harnessing methods to run the entire city and its infrastructure systems — and imagine even having enough extra to sell back to the grid on land. Designed aesthetically as a mega structure that organically rises from the ocean’s surface, the SOL complex ambitiously seeks to “celebrate life” while helping to house it.

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