New Orleans Arcology Habitat: NOAH

Tangram 3DS, a firm specializing in visualization and computer animation, announced it's collaboration with E. Kevin Schopfer AIA, RIBA.

Together, the companies have designed and presented a bold new urban platform.

New Orleans Arcology Habitat (NOAH) is a proposed urban Arcology (architecture and ecology), whose philosophic underpinnings rest in combining large scale sustainability with concentrated urban structures, and in this case a floating city.

Why a floating city? There are three major challenges to building in New Orleans.

The first challenge is to overcome both the physical and psychological damages of recurring severe weather patterns.

Though repopulation has begun, the need to provide a stabilized and safe environment is paramount to a long-term recovery and economic well being of New Orleans.

The second challenge is that New Orleans has been built at and below sea levels, which creates a consistently high water table and makes it prone to flooding and storm surges.

The third challenge is that New Orleans is built on soil condition that consists of thousands of feet of soft soil, silt and clay.

These conditions make building large-scale concentrated structures difficult.

"Believing that NOAH is a viable plan, our solution to overcome these challenges is to take advantage of these seemingly conflicting issues with the introduction of a floating urban platform.

This solution is deceptively simple, using water as a controlled, naturally occurring, bearing foundation, is perfectly feasible and practical," states Schopfer.