When Thomas More published Utopia in 1516, nobody knew where the island could have been located. Nowadays every square inch of land is mapped: Gone mystery, gone imagination. On top of that almost all land is crammed. Luckily there is still the ocean, as more or less uncultivated terrain.
When CANVAS asked us to design a current day Utopia we envisioned an inverted-island: An oversized ring, reclaiming land. Conceived as a giant retaining wall, it is a singular architectural gesture that is at once building and city. It is completely detached from the world around it, but the land it holds on the ocean floor can provide the goods for its inhabitants. Utopia meets Atlantis, let’s say.