Interlocking, LEGO-Like Sea Bricks Could Be Key To Building Floating Communities

As Earth continues to battle with climate change and rising ocean levels, several proposals for floating cities have emerged, ranging from a small cluster of homes crafted from recycled plastic to entire, vibrant cities in the Maldives.

Understandably, constructing communities in the sea isn’t as simple as it is on land, and if the key to that problem is never unlocked, you won’t be seeing water-based utopias pop up across the world any time soon.

At the forefront of the push for floating homes are ‘seasteaders’, which, according to New Atlas, are people who dream of living sovereignly on international waters, away from the rule of any government on the planet.

While the idea may seem a little out there, this curious group may have come up with the perfect idea for developing independent societies in the middle of the ocean: interlocking seaweed bricks that can house properties on top.

Enter Seabrick, a burgeoning company based in Vancouver that has developed a building unit specifically to make construction possible on the high seas. Similar to LEGO bricks, the complex shapes fit together to create platforms and structures that can be built upon.

The Seasteading Institute claimed Seabricks are 72% less costly than floating concrete and last just as long, if not longer. They even beat the per-ton price of steel pontoons by 58%, and aluminum pontoons by 83%.

Just what exactly are these interlocking pieces made out of? Well, the main component of the bricks is kelp or sargassum, a type of seaweed. Once the algae have dried, it is chopped up, combined with “biologically-sourced additives,” and pressed before being coated with polymer.

Not only will collecting the seaweed from shorelines help reduce pollution at sea, but each brick created also helps sequester carbon emissions and only requires “little energy and heat” to create, making it a more eco-friendly choice to build water towns upon than regular concrete.

Impressively, if it comes time to take down the community, the sea bricks can be pulled apart, with the new city built by reusing the original blocks, saving time, energy, and money. Naturally, it’s not certain if this will ever come to fruition, but it certainly is interesting to think about.

[via New Atlas and The Seasteading Institute, images via The Seasteading Institute]