Jessica Hernandez, Edgar Garcia, and Bing Bai of the Master of Architecture II, Geofutures Post Professional Program in Architecture and Urbanism at Rensselaer School of Architecture , under the guidance of the following faculty: Chris Perry and Andrew Saunders with Fleet Hower, propose an archipelago of remote islands which support a fragile ecology of marine wildlife, located in the Marine National Monument off the coast of Hawaii.

This design proposal references two twentieth century urban futurism precedents, Le Corbusier’s Plan Obus for Algiers (1933) and Paolo Soleri’s Novanoah (1969), and incorporates aspects of each while simultaneously proposing something entirely new:a large-scale, floating linear structure comprised of biodegradable materials harvested from the site itself.

Biotic City aspires to bridge the indigenous practices of pre-industrial civilizations with the technological advancements of the industrial age. The project proposes a new post-industrial urbanism that forges intimate and ultimately reciprocal relationships with the natural environment, its complex climates and ecologies, while simultaneously engaging the needs and desires of human activity, achieving both through the application of new advancements in building technology and material science. In terms of programming, Biotic City proposes a remote form of research urbanism, a large-scale scientific complex which supports scientific observation as it relates to complex marine ecologies.