Major metropolitan cities are becoming the central urban hub all around the world.

This is
because people from smaller nearby towns are migrating towards these hubs in search of job
opportunities and education, thus creating a wave of rapid urbanisation which the cities are
failing to cater to. In such cases, landlocked cities like Delhi still have the opportunity to
unfurl radially and merge with the towns nearby, but the problem arises when coastal cities
like Mumbai has to face the same problem. Due to a lack of land to begin with, these cities
have no option but to reclaim land from the adjacent sea which disturbs the sea bed and
results in a decrease in the quality of water. Land reclamation has been in practice since the
ancient ages, especially in harbours. A great number of the world’s shipping docks and
coastal cities now occupy spaces that were once water. The island nation of Japan tops the list
in this domain, needing to expand into the sea due to its topography and the requirement of
land for agricultural practices, urbanisation and especially, industries and port facilities.
Almost 90% of Tokyo Bay’s shore constitutes of reclaimed land.
In the 21st century, this disproportionate conquest of the sea has been picked up by other
counties. In the Gulf of Persia, the coast has been indiscriminately occupied with artificial
island projects for residential purposes. Some of them are finding some difficulties, such as
“The Palms” and “The World” in Dubai, with a loss of sand, which is effect of currents and
waves. In China, due to economic expansion and export needs, industrial areas are spreading
on the coast. Caofeidian (Bohai Bay) is the largest landfill island in the world with 150
square kilometres, more than twice the sum of the area of Dubai Islands. This disproportion
of public works in Asia contrasts with the rest of the world. For example, the Bay of
Algeciras (Spain-UK) is the largest container traffic Port in the Mediterranean with 2.5
square kilometre of reclaimed land, 100 times less than Tokyo Bay. A further problem
associated with this practice is liquefaction, caused mainly by earthquakes, leading to ground
subsidence in buildings, such as in Niigata (1964) or in San Francisco (1989), all on
reclaimed land.
Another issue with rapid urbanisation and current housing trends is the ever-increasing
overall carbon footprint. In light of the above issues, this study aims at two aspects; usage of
a sustainable material such as bamboo and catering to the need of rapid urbanisation in case
of coastal settlements, thus resulting in the hypothesis of a floating city using truly renewable
materials such as bamboo. The study will specifically aim at determining the maximum
distance from the shore, that this plausible structure can be built at. To achieve this aim, the
structure would be tested under the influence of several seismic forces in a computer-
generated environment to simulate the forces that would act upon the structure floating on the
sea. Also, the effect of saline water and moisture on the shear behaviour of bamboo would be
studied thoroughly. Several primary and secondary case studies should aid in determining the
feasibility of such a structure, and whether it could be a solution to the ever rising problem of
rapid urbanisation.