Architecture, urban planning and research in, on and next to water
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Oceans of opportunity

CLADmag
from Cladbook2017
Issue 3.2016
PhotoCredits: Waterstudio

Koen Olthuis has been touting the benefits of floating cities for years – and now people are starting to take notice

A number of high-profile projects have recently brought attention to Koen Olthuis’s approach to living on water. Those include the floating Citadel apartment block in the Netherlands and important large-scale leisure projects such as luxury private islands in Dubai, floating hotels and resorts in the Maldives and a snowflake-shaped hotel off Norway. The potential for floating architecture, Olthuis says, goes far beyond one-off developments: it’s an urban planning tool.
“For the past 15 years, I’ve been designing these floating structures,” says Olthuis, who established his design firm Waterstudio in 2003. “When I started, all the other architects thought I was crazy, but now this approach is starting to be adopted by developers. We’re also talking to governments around the world about how floating developments can upgrade and improve their cities.” The big picture in all this, according to Olthuis, is that extending cities beyond the waterfront and indeed further out to sea reduces the pressure on overpopulated urban areas – where 70 per cent of people will live by 2050 – and offers flexible solutions for problems thrown up by rising sea levels and climate change.

How do floating structures work at a city level?
Governments worldwide are looking at how floating developments can improve their cities. I propose a system of modular floating developments – floating urban components that add a particular function to the existing grid of a city. With this system, any question a city asks can be answered immediately. If a city needs parking, bring in floating parking. If it has green issues, bring in floating parks and Sea Trees [Waterstudio’s offshore green structures]. The system is responsive to the needs of dynamic urban communities.

Is floating architecture the way forward for urban living?
It’s project to product. You’ll be able to order buildings in, and sell or lease buildings you don’t want or need. We’ve only explored a fraction of the possibilities, but in the next 10 to 15 years, more and more architecture will start to explore the possibilities of floating developments and it will grow from something that’s a fringe architecture to something that’s mainstream. The stupid thing is that we live in dynamic communities and yet we build static structures. With rapidly changing social structures and technologies, we need flexible cities. I’m not saying we have to build floating cities, but that every city that is next to the water should have at least 5 per cent of its buildings on the water. That would create flexibility.
It’s not the only way, but it’s something that is inevitable. It’s about rethinking and finding solutions for major problems.

What other advantages are there?
We believe green is good but blue is better. Water provides many tools to make more durable and sustainable cities. You have water cooling for the buildings, you have flexibility, you have buildings that rise and fall with the water level, you don’t have to demolish a building that’s no longer needed because you can repurpose it or even sell it. People, developers and politicians are starting to see that this is something that brings in money and solves problems. It’s a feasible way to build better cities.

What do you mean by flexibility?
I don’t mean that you’ll be able to take your house and move to another city or another neighbourhood. I mean flexibility on a larger scale, where cities and urban planners are able to move a complete neighbourhood half a mile or bring in temporary floating functions – like stadiums – and use them for one or two years before they leave for another city. This large-scale flexibility makes sense. Take the Olympic Games. It’s so strange that every four years we build so many hotels and stadiums and only use them for a few weeks. Imagine if as a city you could just lease these floating functions from a developer. Cities who don’t have as much money as London or Rio or Beijing could also host these types of events because it would cost much less money.

Is it something you can foresee happening in the near future ?
Yes, maybe not with stadiums – because we can put them up easily – but with the hotel business, certainly. Qatar has the World Cup in 2022 and they need 35,000 hotel rooms for that event. But if they built 35,000 hotel rooms, within 10 years they’d be empty. So they’re thinking about using cruise ships. As the harbour facility is not big enough, they’re also thinking about the idea of fl oating harbours, or fl oating cruise terminals – something that can facilitate these cruise ships for a few weeks, and then a: er that you can bring the fl oating harbours to another location.

Can you tell us about Amillarah Private Islands?
Yes. With OQYANA Real Estate Company and developers Dutch Docklands, 33 private islands are being built as part of The World Islands project in Dubai. The islands are being sold by Christie’s International Real Estate, with a starting price of US$10m. It’s a really high-end project. The fl oating islands look like tropical islands covered in trees, but in fact they’re more like superyachts. They’re built in Holland and then moved to the location in Dubai and anchored there. They are self-su5cient with their own electricity and their own water. Within the next 10 years there’ll be more development around them, so we’re making it look like its own archipelago. If you fly over, it looks like a series of green islands. OQYANA has a masterplan around Amillarah that includes shops, hotels and all kinds of leisure architecture. This is just the first step of the development, but the beauty of this floating architecture is that it moves very fast. Once you’ve built the islands you can just tow them in and connect them to the boKom, either with cables or telescopic piles and they’re ready. Compare that to the manmade islands at The World. There’s still very liKle built there. It’s di5cult to get labour there, di5cult to build the right foundations and there’s no electricity or water, so developers don’t know how to build there without losing money.

Have any been sold?
Not yet. We’ll have an island there, like a show home, from December this year (2016). With the history of the property market in Dubai, it’s beKer to have the first islands  there so people can have a look and understand what it’s all about, especially at the prices people pay in this type of market. I should add that if I only ever build floating islands for the rich then I’m doing something wrong. The start of this story for me was to create a new tool for cities that are facing urbanisation, overpopulation and climate change – and also for cities that need to brand themselves to aKract inhabitants. As well as being able to answer these big, fast-changing urban problems, these floating structures bring a certain character and appeal to a city – a USP.

Why does your concept appeal to resort or hotel developers?
On water, leisure architecture, including resorts and hotels, has the possibility to change. You can adapt and create functions that are not only moveable but also transformative through time, for instance, through the seasons. With seasonal structures you can open up the buildings in the summer, make buildings more dense or more spread out. You can add functions or take them away. To me, it’s one big playing field and we’re trying to work out what it means for the future of leisure architecture and real estate, not just how these things will look, but the economic eUects too.

What kind of economic benefits might there be?
A project we started working on a few years ago was a floating hotel and conference centre for the Maldives – the Greenstar. As well as answering fast-changing urban problems, floating structures bring a certain character to a city – a USP The star-shaped hotel has five legs, each with 80 rooms inside, but instead of building five legs, we build six. One of these legs will stay in a harbour in India. In five or seven years time, when the hotel needs refurbishing, you bring the sixth leg to the hotel and connect it, sending the others one by one to be renovated. The hotel doesn’t need to shut down, and the work can be carried out where it’s easy and cost-eBective to get the materials and labour to do it.

What other projects are you working on?
We’re working in the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Oman, exploring the potential of ecotourism. We’re looking at building satellite resorts for land-sited hotels, that float out at sea where there are coral reefs or mangroves. Floating resorts don’t leave any scars on the environment – they’re scarless developments, which can even have a positive eBect on the environment. For example, we work with marine engineers and environmentalists to help build floating structures that aKract underwater life. In places like Dubai, it’s so hot that it’s very
diLcult to create the right environment for fish and marine life, but the shade of these floating islands can provide a starting point for new marine ecosystems. We’re also working with master developer Dutch Docklands and the Maldivean government on the ongoing Five Lagoons Ocean Flower resort and residences. Finally, we’re looking at developing cities that face troubles with the environment, density and infrastructure – and seeing how water can be part of that solution.

What are the challenges?
Progress on Norway’s Krystall Hotel is slow because of laws that prevent building on the shoreline. Regulations and laws can be a hurdle, and may need to be changed to adapt to floating architecture. But, we are slowly moving to a marketplace where these floating developments are accepted. There’s a bright future for this technology.

Slum Schools
Waterstudio has been pioneering the concept of floating facilities that can be moored at waterside slum communities anywhere in the world. City Apps are floating developments based on a standard sea-freight container. City Apps can be established in water where there is scarcity of space and can be used to upgrade sanitation, housing and communication installations. The first City App, a floating school, is being built for a slum in Dhaka. “One billion people live in slums worldwide and half of them are close to the water. We can use City Apps to instantly improve the quality of life there,” says Olthuis. Because governments see these as temporary solutions, it’s much easier to get permission to do this than to build a facility on land.

 

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Buoyant buildings: better than boats?

By P.Kennedy
Suffolk Construction’s Content 
Build smart
September.16.2016

 

With hurricane season at its peak, we explore how floating homes might help us adapt to bigger storms and rising seas.

The Dutch have a head start when it comes to dealing with water. The extreme weather events and rising sea level that scientists predict this century will affect millions around the globe—most of the world’s largest cities are along the coasts. But that problem has long been acute in the low-lying Netherlands, where two-thirds of the population live in flood-prone areas. Over the centuries, the Dutch have honed technologies—dikes, canals, and pumps—that keep their streets and houses dry.

Now, a new generation of Dutch engineers and architects is modeling another method. Rather than fight to keep water out, they say, why not live on it? The basic idea is not new—hundreds of free spirits live on traditional houseboats in quirky communities like Sausalito, California, and Key West, Florida. But in the Netherlands over the past few years, novel technologies have allowed developers to build roughly a thousand (and counting) stable, flat-bottomed, multi-story homes connected to land-based utilities yet designed to rise and fall with the tides and even floods. House boats, these ain’t.

And this is just the start. The Dutch are thinking bigger, and they’re exporting their floating-home vision worldwide, betting that the rest of us coastal clingers could use it. Some projects exist already, others are on the drawing board or coming soon. Let’s take a look at a few, from the workaday to the fantastical, and from overseas to right here in the States.

Photo by Roos Aldershoff, courtesy of Marlies Rohmer Architects and Urbanists

A “normal house” on water

The first of its kind, Waterbuurt (above and top) is a planned neighborhood of about 100 (eventually 165) floating houses in Amsterdam’s IJmeer Lake, part of a freshwater reservoir dammed off from the North Sea in the 1930s. Waterbuurt broke ground—er, water—in 2009, and was largely complete by 2014. Connected by jetties, the structures are three-story, 2,960-square-foot houses built of wood, aluminum, and glass.

And the foundations? Floating concrete tubs. Each house is designed to weigh 110 tons and displace 110 tons of water, which—as Archimedes could tell you—causes it to float. (The bottom floor is half submerged.) To prevent rocking in the waves, the house is fastened to two mooring posts—on diagonally opposite corners of the house—driven 20 feet into the lake bed. The posts are telescoping, allowing the house to rise and fall with the water level. Flexible pipes deliver electricity and plumbing.

Because any crack in the foundation tub could cause the house to sink, there can’t be any joints; builders pour the entire basement in one shot—much like the parking garage of the Jade Signaturecondo complex in Florida. In a facility 30 miles away from the IJmeer Lake site, crews use special buckets that pour 200 gallons per minute to finish all four walls and the floor in a single shift.

Just four months elapse before the entire house is built; then it’s towed by tugboat—30 miles through canals and locks—to the plot. The transportation is a major reason the houses cost about 10 percent more than an average home in Amsterdam, though they’re still aimed at the city’s middle class. The houses were designed by architect Marlies Rohmer, for developer Ontwikkelingscombinatie Waterbuurt West.

Photo by Marcel van der Berg

Once secured to its mooring posts, the structure is formally considered an immovable home, not a house boat. (Although owners have the option of naming their waterborne homes as sea captains do. One couple calls theirs La Scalota Grigia—Italian for “The Grey Box.”)

With high ceilings and straight angles, a house in Waterbuurt “feels like a normal house,” wrote a New York Times reporter who toured one. But some residents say they do feel their home swaying when the wind kicks up.

One other drawback, or at least challenge: Residents have to decide before the house is even built where they’re going to place furniture, because that will affect its balance. The walls are built to varying thickness, depending on the layout submitted. What if you inherit a beloved aunt’s piano after you move in? Or have another child and need to buy a bunkbed? To compensate, homeowners can install balance tanks on the exterior or Styrofoam in the cellar, or carefully move furniture around or even deploy sand bags. A bit of a hassle, but perhaps with an eye on rising sea levels, that’s a risk Amsterdammers are willing to take.

Rendering courtesy of architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL, and developer Dutch Docklands

Living large on a lake

At the luxury end of the market, there’s Citadel, which aims to be the world’s first floating apartment complex. Construction began in 2014. Citadel uses the same technology as Waterbuurt—floating concrete base, mooring pistons—but on a larger scale, in the sense that this will be one massive deck supporting a multifaceted apartment building, rather than a place for many individual houses to dock. Think of it as Waterbuurt with butlers. (And underwater parking and other amenities).

Citadel was designed by pioneering architect Koen Olthuis’ Waterstudio in partnership with master developer Dutch Docklands. The concrete caisson foundation will measure 240 by 420 by 9 feet, supporting 60 sleek, aluminum-clad apartments in an irregular arrangement that from the air will look a bit like a scattering of stacks of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Palm trees will sprout from courtyards. Green roofs are planned, and the developer hopes to have Citadel use 25 percent less energy than a similarly-sized complex on land.

One thing remarkable about Citadel is the body of water it will float in: a lake that doesn’t exist yet, though it did once. Construction is taking place in a polder, one of the Netherlands’ many low-lying areas that is only dry because pumps work 24-7 to keep the water out. Once construction is complete, the pumps will shut off, and the area will be re-flooded, to 12 feet deep. Eventually, Dutch Docklands plans to build five more complexes in the same un-manmade lake, dubbed New Water.

Rendering courtesy of architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL, and developer Dutch Docklands 

Exporting the vision

This is all well and good for the Dutch, but what about the flat, flood-prone coastal regions here in the USA? Like, for example, Florida? Well, the Dutch have thought of that. Another Waterstudio-Docklands project is Amillarah Floating Private Islands Miami, located in Maule Lake. A former limestone rock quarry, the privately owned lake is an inlet a mile and a half from the ocean, a bit north of Miami Beach.

Dubbed a “villa flotilla” by the Miami Herald, the complex will consist of 29 6,000-square-foot condos priced at $12.5 million each. As with Citadel and other Dutch Docklands projects, there are plans to boost the Maule Lake project’s sustainability, in this case with solar and hydrogen-powered generators.

Though similar to Citadel in the Netherlands, this project wouldn’t have been possible Stateside without a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that floating homes could be considered real estate, not boats. As the Herald explained, would-be buyers of Amillarah condos can get a mortgage and homeowners’ insurance, and the Coast Guard can’t bust in and inspect for life jackets.

Maule Lake will be out of reach for most Floridians financially, but if the ambitious project succeeds, it will provide visual evidence to Miami that floating houses can be done, and perhaps inspire larger, more modest developments like Amsterdam’s Waterbuurt.

Renderings courtesy of architect Brian Healy

Not hidebound in the Hub

In Boston, architect Brian Healy, for the local office of Perkins+Will, won awards in 2013 for his design of Floatyard, a proposed apartment complex that would stretch out onto the Mystic River from the Charlestown Navy Yard, using much of the same technology as the abovementioned Dutch initiatives. Were Floatyard and similar projects to become reality here, Healy argues that they would not only help the city adapt to rising seas but also revitalize disused shipyards (for example, in East Boston and Quincy) and reorient Boston—historically a seaport—toward its natural center, the harbor.

What makes Floatyard unique is its central courtyard: a floating wetland island, built above the foundation, to be seeded with native marsh grass and aquatic wildlife. The design also includes a plan to harvest tidal energy via the structure’s mooring post pistons.

Elder statesman of architecture criticism Robert Campbell could have been talking about any of the above floating buildings when he wrote of Floatyard: “Like a lot of good ideas, this one is just crazy enough to make sense.” Given the prediction for the ocean to rise between three and five feet by the year 2100, it might be more crazy not to build on floating tubs.

 

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The Floating Dutchman

By Kerstin Schweighöfer
FUTURE PERFECT
December 2015

 

Koen Olthuis | © Architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

The Citadel is a floating apartment complex near Naaldwijk, Netherlands. | © Architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL

 

THE FLOATING DUTCHMAN

In the tradition of his water-taming nation, Dutchman Koen Olthuis designs floating islands to dwell and live on – not least because climate change calls for new solutions in architecture.

A vacation doesn’t get more wonderful than this: a white sandy beach, a green-blue, glistening sea and an exotic underwater world to thrill any snorkeling enthusiast. All you have to do to explore it is jump into the Indian Ocean from your personal jetty, because the elegant vacation villa where you’re staying is floating on the water. In a Maldivian lagoon, this dream is currently becoming a reality as the construction of 185 floating vacation homes is currently underway. They’re arranged in the shape of a giant flower on the water. Hence the name of the project: Ocean Flower.

It was designed by Koen Olthuis, a Dutch architect who is considered a pioneer of what is called Aqua Architecture: “I build exclusively on the water,” says the 44-year-old with a strawberry-blonde mop of curly hair. His buildings are made to withstand floods and climate change because everything Olthuis designs can adapt to the level of the sea. It is not by accident that his office in Rijswijk near The Hague bears the name waterstudio.nl.

Bracing for climate change, without leaving a trace

In order to make such bold projects as the Ocean Flower a reality, Olthuis partnered with a fellow Dutchman, project developer Paul van de Camp, to found the company Dutch Docklands. It buys water properties all over the world to use them as building sites. This opens up completely new perspectives – not only for densely populated cities or countries where building sites are in short supply and hence, expensive: “It also helps residents protect themselves from the consequences of climate change.”

There is a reason Dutch Docklands launched its first project in the Maldives. It’s not just to cater to the recreational interests of spoiled tourists: The 300,000 inhabitants of the island nation will soon literally be up to their necks in water, because 80 percent of the Maldives are located barely a metre above sea level. The government had already announced plans to buy to land elsewhere in order to survive. Until Olthuis and van de Camp assured them that this was quite unnecessary: “We made the President of the Maldives understand that climate refugees can be pioneers of climate management,” said Olthuis. They understood immediately.

The Ocean Flower is just the beginning: Four more lagoons with floating vacation lodges are to follow, as well as a floating conference centre and one of the world’s most spectacular golf courses that will spread over several man-made islands to be connected by underwater glass tunnels.

And all this can be done without leaving a trace in nature or inflicting any damage, for Dutch Docklands is committed to what it calls the scarless approach: “Our units can float anywhere on the water for 200 years, yet if the area is needed for some other purpose, they can just be hauled away,” Olthuis explains. They will be gone without a trace.

The Dutch know how to live with the water

It isn’t surprising that the pioneers of Aqua Architecture are Dutch: Like no other people, the nation at the mouth of the Rhine River has spent centuries learning to tame the water or to keep it in check with dikes, dams and levees. As the proverb goes: “God created the world – and the Dutch the Netherlands.”

Whether it is in New Orleans or in Bangladesh: The expertise of Dutch hydraulic engineers and architects is in high demand throughout the world – today more so than ever, thanks to climate change, which brings swelling rivers, rising sea levels and more catastrophic floods around the globe.

The Dutch have long recognized that building ever higher dams won’t be enough. Therefore, the former nemesis is instead given more space: Polders are being flooded, retention basins are being built, tributaries being carved out and filled-up canals dug free again.

The old seafaring nation now has even less residential land available. Yet the Dutch discovered that the flooded polders and artificial water basins offer more benefits than just a controlled channeling of excess water.

Trend and challenge of generation climate change

As a consequence, aqua living has since become a trend in the Netherlands; all over the country, people reside in what is called waterwoningen. Their foundation consists of a concrete tub filled with Styrofoam, which is considered unsinkable. To keep them in place, they are moored to poles with rings so they can easily adapt to rising sea levels. Electricity and water lines are connected via hoses and cables.

Olthuis has designed countless waterwoningen: transparent villas sitting elegantly on the water, such as in Aalsmeer, Zwolle, Leiden or Amsterdam, which received an entire floating neighborhood in 2012, the steigereiland. In Antwerp, Olthuis designed a floating boulevard on the Scheldt, in Paris he created a restaurant on the Seine. And in a polder between The Hague and Delft, he wants to build de Citadel, Europe’s first floating apartment complex on a foundation of 140 by 90 metres. “Technologically speaking, all of this is easy to do,” he stresses.

The technology developed and patented by Olthuis virtually eliminates size limits on foundations for waterwoningen. In other words, the foundation can be a platform large enough to accommodate entire blocks of houses, complete with yards and parking garages: “The larger an object, the more stable it is on the water,” the architect explains.

Olthuis is therefore convinced: The city of the future consists of floating platforms that can be moved around like floes of ice. “It will evolve one step at a time,” the bold Dutchman predicts: The next fifteen years will see churches, schools and sports fields move out onto the water, then in 50 years, we will have platforms as large as 200 by 200 metres, with houses, roads and parks – until a century from now, the city of the future will be a reality: a flexible delta-metropolis of floating elements. For Olthuis, this new type of urban design, this new flexibility is “the great challenge for the architects of the climate change generation.”

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Luxury Anywhere, Anytime! Floating Private Islands By Koen Olthuis

By Jesse James
Stupid Dope
August.2015

Traveling is fun and all, but sometimes you just want to be on your own private island; right? Well today we get a unique way to do exactly that, take a vacation on your own private island; The Floating Private Islands By Koen Olthuis. This unique and rather eye-catching design plays host to some creative concepts, which not only serves as some stunning spots to vacation, but also creates new underwater habitats for nearby sea life.

The design allows you to choose what type of home or facility you want on your island, as well as where it will be located. The customizable design offers luxury and an eco-friendly design that is sure to provide a unique and rather lavish retreat. Have a look at these sleek and quite bold concepts in the images below and above and speak your mind on it after the jump. For more information head over here immediately, and start stacking now!

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Real Estate Listings: First Floating Islands to be Up for Sale in Maldives, Dubai and Miami

By Staff Reporter
media@realtytoday.com
August.18.2015

 

HONIARA, GUADALCANAL ISLAND, SOLOMON ISLANDS – SEPTEMBER 17: The lodge and private beach where Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge are to spend the night on the island of Tuvanipupu on their Diamond Jubilee tour of the Far East on September 17, 2012 in Honiara, Guadalcanal Island. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge are on a Diamond Jubilee tour representing the Queen taking in Singapore, Malaysia, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. (Photo : Chris Jackson – Pool/Getty Images)

Christie’s International Real Estate has taken luxury properties into a whole different level. The company is set to start Amillarah Private Islands, a floating island empire to be first established in the tiny islands of Maldives, which will possibly expand to Dubai and Miami in the years to come.

Forbes has called this venture by Christie’s as “The World’s First Portable Private Islands.” The New York-based company has partnered with Dutch Docklands, which also specializes in high luxury properties. The partnership is said to be on-strategy for both ends. Dutch Docklands are also experts in on-water structures.

Other than it being a private and man-made island, the project will also be eco-friendly, self-sufficient, and highly customizable. The companies has also partnered with Ocean Futures Society, which specializes in eco-vacations. According to Daily Mail, they have hired Jean-Michel Costeau to help with the design and research for the sustainable islands.

In terms of customization, CEO of Christie’s Dan Conn said, “The opportunity to literally develop a private island on a body of water is a testament to Dutch Dockland’s skills in this arena. Buyers are able to customize the size, shape and style of their residence, within the broadest range of locations, beginning with this first opportunity in the Maldives.”

Safety will be no issue in Amillarah. Christie’s has also hired specialists and experts and they guarantee that the land will be safe from rising sea levels. The new venture will give buyers the opportunity to truly make their own paradise that they call their own masterpiece.

Potential buyers can check out their official website at www.amillarah.com. It is currently marketing itself as “Your Own Private Island: A piece of art you can live in.”

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Amillarah, een privé eiland die je zelf kan customizen

By Gewoon voor hem
August.2015

 

Amillarah, een privé eiland dat je zelf kan customizen! Jep, voor de superrijken gaan de mogelijkheden steeds verder en verder.

Volgens Amillarah, wat overigens staat voor privé eiland, zit er één groot nadeel aan het aanschaffen van een privé eiland; de locatie. Vrijwel altijd liggen ze erg afgelegen en zijn de meeste faciliteiten erg kostbaar. Dat is dus verleden tijd, de eilanden zijn geplaatst in een bepaalde zone met de faciliteiten die nodig zijn binnen handbereik. Verder zijn de eilanden te customizen qua indeling en formaat.

De eilanden zijn ontworpen om minimaal 100 jaar in top conditie te blijven, hebben totaal geen (negatieve) impact op de natuur en zullen tevens zorgen voor een prachtige onderwaterwereld die zich kan nestelen onder en rondom jouw stulpje.

Er worden er maar 43 gemaakt, dus zorg dat je er snel bij bent enne.. nodig ons ook even uit!


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World’s first portable islands will let super-rich create eco-friendly getaways anywhere on Earth

By Jack Williams
Mirror
August.2015

 

Amillarah Private Islands have released artists’ impressions of luxury getaways in the Maldives, Miami and Dubai, where work is already is already planne

Want to own your own island but can’t find one in your desired location?

Such issues could soon be consigned to history – for the super-wealthy, at least – after plans were unveiled for the world’s first PORTABLE islands.

These artists’ impressions show the self -sustaining, eco-friendly creations that will allow people to create their own getaways anywhere on Earth.

Each home will adhere to the customer’s every need – with the renderings including options such as swimming pools, boat docks and greenery.

 

Grand plans: Amillarah Private Islands is the company behind the getaways

Going green: The islands will be eco-friendly and self-sustaining

 

Amillarah Private Islands are the creative force behind the initiative, which will offer islands in all shapes and sizes.

Their renderings show properties in the likes of the Maldives, Miami and Dubai, where Amillarah islands are already planned.

Where would you park your private island? Have your say in the comment box below.

 

Bespoke: Each island will adhere to the customer’s every need

Custom-made: Designs feature swimming pools, boat docks and greenery

 

Amillarah is overseen by developers Dutch Docklands, who have teamed up with Christie’s International Real Estate for the project.

Dan Conn, CEO of Christie’s International Real Estate, said: “The opportunity to literally develop a private island on a body of water is a testament to Dutch Dockland’s skills in this arena.

 

Take your pick: Amillarah will offer islands in all shapes and sizes

 

“Buyers are able to customise the size, shape and style of their residence, within the broadest range of locations, beginning with this first opportunity in the Maldives.”

The designs were created by famed Dutch architect Koen Olthuis, who helped found Dutch Docklands, in 2005.

 

Island life: The designs were created by Dutch architect Koen Olthuis

 

Each island is intended to keep environmental impact to a minimum using state-of-the-art technology.

The company are already developing 10 properties with the Government of Maldives, which will create a lagoon 25 minutes from the nearest airport.

 

Tropical: Amillarah are developing 10 properties with the Government of Maldives

 

In Dubai, OQYANA Real Estate have signed a deal for 33 islands, while in Miami, 30 islands are set to be developed.

Paul van de Camp, CEO of Dutch Docklands, added: “We’ve not only created a new luxury global brand with ‘Amillarah Private Islands’ but also a new industry of private island development to cater to our most discerning clients.

 

In demand: In Dubai, OQYANA Real Estate have signed a deal for 33 islands

 

“In addition to our Maldivian project, we have new developments signed in Dubai and Miami, and are actively looking for opportunities worldwide.”

Rick Moeser, Senior Vice President at Christie’s International Real Estate, said: “Each of these homes is an eco-friendly work of art that can be lived in, allowing consumers to not only create, but enjoy whatever kind of paradise they desire.”

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4 Reasons why you should buy your own personalised floating island

By Boat,
August.2015

 

1. You can customise your private island

The world of private island real estate could be about to dramatically change as Christie’s International has announced a partnership with Dutch Docklands to construct a series of atolls across the globe.

Looking for a secluded island paradise? Discover what Amillarah Private Islands will have to offer:

You can customise your island

Always wanted your own private island but never found one that quite fits your exacting criteria? Panic not as it is possible to customise your island to your wishes.

Dan Conn, CEO of Christie’s International Real Estate. “Buyers are able to customize the size, shape and style of their residence.”

Rick Moeser, the firm’s senior vice president, added: “Each of these homes is an eco-friendly work of art that can be lived in, allowing consumers to not only create, but enjoy whatever kind of paradise they desire.”

2. You can choose the location of your private island

Not only can you customise the design of your island, but you also get to decide where it is located. Maldives? Miami? Dubai? New York? Simply take your pick.

The project is going to start with 10 islands being built in Maldives in a lagoon, which is only a 35-minute transfer by boat from the airport. So whilst you’re exploring the Maldives next, stop by your own private island. In addition, there are already agreements signed in Dubai and Miami and other locations are currently being sought out.

3. Your island will be eco-friendly

With increasing threats to the world’s oceans, it is reassuring to know that the islands will be created using the latest state-of-the-art green technology.

The base of the island is designed to last for more than 100 years and will create a new habitat for sea life to live underneath. The project has teamed up with Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society to work out better ways to enhance these new ocean habitats.

4.Your island will be constructed using the best in Dutch design

As we know from the superyacht industry, the Dutch are pretty good at creating things that float. Founded in 2005, Dutch Docklands are experts in floating developments, concepts and infrastructure. Using The Netherlands’ experience from the battle against rising water levels the company will create the islands that will be “self-sustainable and safe from rising sea levels”.

“We have not only created a new luxury global brand with Amillarah Private Islands but also a new industry of private island development to cater to our most discerning clients,” said Paul van de Camp, CEO of Dutch Docklands.

All pictures courtesy of Christie’s International

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