There’s no doubt that humans can and will find ingenuous ways to overcome the challenges we face as a result of climate change. After spending just a few minutes on the internet searching for alternative housing solutions for the people living on low lying islands, we came across numerous innovative projects that are designed to take advantage of the most uninhabited space on our planet: the oceans. You can see the benefit that these solutions would provide for the Marshallese who are losing their land to the rising tide.

This company from Germany has taken the concept of house boating to the next level, drafting floating homes that have all of the comfort and elegance of today’s designer metropolitan apartment.

An article posted by inhabitat.com shows a pretty cool concept project that looks at how we can take advantage of ocean’s space by building floating cities. Ideally you could have entire community living above the ocean. It even includes a green roof heli pad.

Now the question is,  for all of this adaptive innovation, at what cost does it come? What beauty, culture and life would be lost to these rising tides?

By the time we are in a position to engineer a community of this scale, island countries like the Marshall’s may already have been swallowed up by the rising sea level.

We are very limited in our ability to compete with the craftsmanship of Mother Nature and there is no doubt that much will be lost with the passing of these islands. No matter how hard we try we won’t be able to recreate them with concrete and steel. For all the steps that we take forward we should recognize the value of the past.

Standing on the deck of one of these proposed floating super-structures in the Pacific would bring about some sense of connection with mother nature, but how would it compare to this scene on Arno Atoll in the Marshall Islands?