A new country calls for a new style of architecture.
That’s the premise of a design competition recently held by the government of Liberland, which claims to be the world’s youngest sovereign nation.
The three-square-mile country was founded in April 2015 by Vit Jedlicka, a libertarian Czech politician who now serves as Liberland’s president. The land is located on the western bank of the Danube river, in a no man’s land between Serbia and Croatia that was formed when engineers straightened the course of the Danube in the late 19th century.
According to the competition’s guidelines, the submissions had to be "radically creative, yet mature proposals for a fertile, high-density city-nation of the 21st century."
The winning design, which was announced May 20, is a self-sustaining, algae-powered cityscape in which horizontal layers can be built on top of existing ones as the country’s population grows.
The proposal was submitted by RAW-nyc, an interdisciplinary architecture studio based in New York. The design calls for algae to be cultivated on the bottom of each layer of the city. The aquatic plants would convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis and store it in the form of oil, so that biofuel could later be harvested and used to power the city.
All human, agricultural and organic waste would also be converted into forms of biofuel, and buildings would incorporate photovoltaic and solar panels. Vertical gardens and green rooftops would be used to collect rainwater and grow food.
It’s a lofty goal, but that’s what the competition asked for.
"On a functional level Liberland has no zoning regulations or municipal restrictions. It has no pre-established design culture," the guidelines said. "The field is wide open to innovation on every scale."
Jedlicka envisions the nation as an experiment in libertarianism, with a skeletal government, fully privatized institutions, and a voluntary taxation system.
"The competition gave every skilled architect a chance to envision and design the world’s first Libertarian country," he told Tech Insider in an email, adding, "We also wanted to see how people could solve the natural challenges of flooding and limited social space that Liberland faces. This open-competition approach encouraged levels of creativity which would be unachievable with a single provider."
Instead of planning tall high rises to accommodate a dense population that could eventually be squeezed into Liberland's small space, the RAW-nyc team created a technique that they call Inverted Archaeology. Each stackable horizontal layer would contain buildings, streets and landscaping.
The layers would be staggered, with each one leaving more open, unbuilt space than the one below it so that natural light could penetrate all the way to the ground. Floodable parks would be built on the lowest level to mitigate the risk of an overflowing Danube.
Because Liberland is so small, the plan is completely car-free. The pedestrian-friendly design includes interconnected walking and biking paths throughout the city, as well as an elevated public transit line.
President Jedlicka says the design, which was picked from a pool of 32 entries, incorporates Liberland’s values of individuality, self-growth and environmental preservation.
"This stacked-levels approach keeps the people connected, and the city remains able to grow vertically without squeezing us in," he says. "They solved all pressing problems with a project that covered every aspect of green-living and energy renewability."
But in a country that hopes to crowd-fund its state expenditures, employ police and firefighters on a strictly volunteer basis, and rely on the free market to provide everything from health care to education, it is unclear as of yet how an urban planning project of this scale would be funded.
Liberland also hasn't achieved international recognition as a sovereign nation. Jedlicka planted a flag there when he proclaimed the country's founding, but he technically doesn't have any right to it. As of now, neither he nor the 400,000 people who have applied for citizenship can access the land. The Croatian border patrol is now protecting the land from Jedlicka and his people.
"Naturally, all diplomatic matters with both of our neighbors have to be solved first for us to continue," President Jedlika says, adding that the country’s first settlements will be boathouses on the Danube. But he is nonetheless optimistic about the implementation of RAW-nyc’s plan.
"I would say the chances are high, as it’s a complete solution," he says. "It will be a guideline to anyone working on urbanization of Liberland in the future."
For now, though, the world’s first sustainable, non-polluting nation exists only in renderings.
