Float
As the future unfolds, we will be doing more and more with less and less - more impact with less resources.
Buckminster Fuller—an inventor, designer, architect, engineer, futurist, amongst other titles—coined the term ‘ephemeralization’ where technological advancement enables doing “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”. We have seen and continue to see this phenomenon occur across numerous industries. For instance, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper was once needed for transatlantic communication, but today’s fiber optics and invisibly tethered satellite technology is the norm.
Transportational fluidity / Greater mobility / Sensing city / Intelligent network / Flow of citizens / Clustering Swarm intelligence / Motional flux / Accessibility / Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) ++
Applying this idea to transportation, ephemeralization is apparent within its various modes and mediums. Transport is become lighter, smarter, quicker, more efficient, regenerative, sustainable, consuming less and less while harnessing natural resources.
FLOAT is a speculative future transportation concept, extrapolating this process of “less and less for more and more” in an environment where the automobile is essentially non-existent. Spherical bubbles are dispersed throughout an urban environment allowing citizens to easily move from point A to B within a city or to its peripheries and beyond. FLOAT intelligently clusters together at various hubs for passengers’ ease of use. Points of exit can practically be done anywhere where the bubbles will then assume the most appropriate location in relation to the clusters.
Transportational fluidity is a key influential factor for FLOAT where individual vehicle ownership does not reign and a collective, accessible and collaborative approach is the underlying ethos.
A visualization of FLOAT in a desert landscape
Abstract representation of FLOAT in motion as well as in clusters within various areas of a city
Aerial shot of a hypothetical distribution of FLOAT bubbles