This is stirring up a bit of heat in the green building and Haiti city planning blogospheres. From architect E. Kevin Schopfer and Tangram 3DS, this plan envisions a new Haiti to have a floating city on which people could “produce food and promote industry”. I don’t know what that last part means, but they call it Harvest City – a collection of islands for 30,000 residents based on the principle of Arcology (a mix of architecture and ecology), and “could be a key player in Haiti’s recovery”.

This seems impractical, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.

Actually, yeah, it does. First of all: hurricane proof? I’m not convinced. Second of all, there already are islands in the Gulfe de la Gonâve. And thirdly, I’m going out on a limb here to say a community for 30,000 doesn’t even begin to respond to the critical issues of overpopulation and severely sub-standard living conditions threatening to exist in perpetuity in Port-au-Prince, with or without arcology.

Love the portmanteau, though. (Fun fact: a portmanteau is a blend of two (or more) words or morphemes and their meanings into one new word, usually combining specifically the beginning syllables of one word with the end syllables of another. e.g. arcology.)