Photo: Jari Kostiainen. Original photo (DKO Architecture with Bluet Oy Ltd for Lotus Equity Group).

At the 5th World Conference on Floating Solutions (WCFS2025) in Hanasaari, Finland, Dr. Teemu Manderbacka of VTT and Aalto University painted a vision that sits somewhere between speculative moonshot and near-future engineering reality.
His talk, “Future Visions for Large Floating Solutions,” wasn’t just a pitch for ocean-based utopias—it was a grounded look at how floating infrastructure could tackle global crisis while navigating a regulatory minefield and practical maintenance dilemmas.
The big idea is simple: the oceans cover 70 % of the planet. Why not use that space more intelligently? Dr. Manderbacka outlined three visionary directions:

Floating Transport Carriers

Imagine drifting platforms that harness natural ocean currents—zero-emission bulk transport systems slowly carrying materials like freshwater, minerals, even Saharan sand across the seas. No fuel-hungry engines, just the push of the Atlantic’s great conveyor belts.

Ocean-Based Resource Harvesting

Floating structures could support renewable energy generation (solar, wind, wave), aquaculture, carbon capture, and marine nutrient farming. These aren’t sci-fi fantasies; many of these technologies exist today—just not yet at the scale envisioned.

Habitats on Water

Floating hotels, retirement communities, emergency housing, or even full-scale cities—these modular megastructures could be relocated based on need. For events, crisis, or seasonal economies, transportability is the game-changing advantage.

Vision Meets Reality

While the ideas are bold, Manderbacka emphasized that floating infrastructure is already part of our world. Floating homes, entertainment venues, even marine farms are no longer experimental. However, the jump from niche applications to self-sustaining floating cities is a leap—and not just a technological one.

Dr. Teemu Manderbacka of VTT and Aalto University / Photo: Jari Kostiainen

Maintenance: The Unseen Backbone

Maintaining floating systems isn’t like maintaining a ship or a building—it’s like both, simultaneously. Everything from hull integrity and environmental exposure to the reliability of onboard life systems needs constant attention.

A central concern is logistics. How self-sufficient can a floating community realistically be? Will spare parts and services be delivered from land, or produced onboard? The degree of autonomy defines both cost and complexity.

As Manderbacka noted in Maintworld follow-up interview, “All structures require maintenance. Whether it's a building or a vessel, they have different needs—but floating structures must meet both.”
Maintworld readers know this well: maintenance is not a footnote to innovation; it’s the core enabler.

The Legal Limbo

If there’s a showstopper in this story, it’s regulation. Manderbacka underscored a paradox: floating structures don’t neatly fit into maritime or terrestrial law.

Villa W, Tukholma Ruotsi. Photo Jari Kostiainen photo credit Bluet Oy

Some nations might treat them as ships, subjecting them to International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules—designed for harsh open-sea conditions—even if they're moored in calm, sheltered waters. Others might apply building codes, creating mismatched or conflicting standards.

That regulatory uncertainty makes investors wary. A floating structure approved in Helsinki might, for example, not pass muster just a few kilometers away in the city of Espoo.

“The challenge is balancing transportability and local compliance,” Manderbacka explained. “We need a hybrid legal framework that reflects the reality of floating solutions—modular, mobile, and multi-use.”

What Comes Next?

For floating infrastructure to scale, a few things must happen:
• Global legal alignment, or at least standardization zones.
• Maintenance infrastructure built into design, from redundancy systems to remote diagnostics.
• Business models that account for transportability, lifecycle costs, and multipurpose adaptability.
• Public-private partnerships willing to absorb early-stage risk for long-term gains.

The Maintenance Mandate

Floating cities might be a distant goal, but floating infrastructure is already making waves. As urban pressure pushes coastlines to their limits, the sea is no longer just a backdrop—it’s part of the solution.

For the maintenance industry, this isn’t a future problem. It’s now. From structural resilience to life-support systems, floating solutions demand a new kind of readiness. They must be built to move, survive—and crucially—be maintained to endure.

Text: Mia Heiskanen   

Photos: Jari Kostiainen