Ideally using today's technology, or that of a few decades in the future, how might scientists engineer an island, floating in the sea¹ fulfilling these criteria?

• it is large enough for humans to live on it, and self-sufficient
• it is predominantly plant-based, or similarly living, and so
  • can repair minor damage (e.g. loss of small quantities of buoyant material) automatically
  • can expand (to some extent) automatically
  • more major damage (e.g. loss of entire "boughs" (or equivalent)) is fixable, albeit perhaps with human aid
• it would remain far away from land
• (Bonus: it can be moved around the ocean, directed by its inhabitants)

Consideration

It seems to me that a single organism might be impractical; however, would some sort of scaffold with kelp, or some similarly buoyant waterweed, growing from it be possible?

_{1. Questions have already been asked about islands floating in the sky; this is not one of them.}

posted over 6 years ago

Benedict Randall Shaw‭

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