2012-04-03
post/20408097203
The Triton Foundation / Buckminster Fuller proposal for a floating tetrahedral city in San Francisco Bay:
From The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller:
Such tetrahedronal floating cities would measure two miles to an edge, and can be floated in a triangularly patterned canal. This will make the whole structure earthquake-proof. The whole city can be floated out into the ocean to any point and anchored. The depth of its founda tions will go below the turbulence level of the seas so that the floating tetrahedronal is land will be, in effect, a floating triangular atoll. Its two mile long “boat” foundations will constitute landing strips for jet airplanes. Its interior two mile harbor will provide refuge for the largest and smallest ocean vessels.
From Cracked’s list of “The 6 Most Insane Cities Ever Planned”:
Triton anticipated a lower maximum population of just over 100,000 people, and was also to be the first fully organic city, complete with a desalination system to re-circulate ocean water. Schematics for Triton were sent to the United States Navy’s Bureau of Ships, to check it for “water-worthiness,” stability and organic capabilities, then off to the Bureau of Yards and Docks to see whether or not they could even build this thing, specifically at the cost they had projected. Both Bureaus gave the thumbs up, and the Navy’s cost estimate came within 10% of Buckminster’s. And that’s probably the craziest part of Triton: At every stage, it was going to work.
From the description of A Study of a Prototype Floating Community at Amazon:
Triton was a concept for an anchored floating city for 100,000 people that would be located just offshore and connected with bridges to the mainland. When President Johnson left office he took the model with him and installed it in his Presidential Library in Texas. This is the complete design report.
Now that’s what I call a utopian impulse.
