On the edge of the impossible.
Chief Architect Anna Brücke sounds proud and relieved when I met her at the construction side. She invites me for strong black coffee and emedietly starts talking about the big facts of the project.
755 meter in diameter and 145 meter high.
Momentum is the largest autonomous swimming object humankind has ever build.
It can host up to 128 AutoBoats simultaneously and provides self sustainable living space for up to 768 inhabitants.
After 20 years of planing and 4 years of construction the first fleet is finally ready to reach out for the infinit of the sea in the coming quarter.
Brücke and her colleges faced many issues and problems during that time. "There where many times in the past when I thought that we are on the edge of achieving the impossible. The artistry was to keep the balance on all departments and the candor communication of my team", says Brücke while she stands in front of a big crane lifting up plants to the 60 meter high dome in the middle of the ocean city. "Hamburg was the place to go because it already provided the infrastructure and people knew about the necessity of Momentum"
While there are many pictures in Brücke's construction office, showing the ocean city on different places around the world, Momentum One will never leave Hamburg, since the construction itself is not ready for the wild oceans. Only the first fleet, the AutoBoats will leave there home harbor and after a one year journey around the globe they will return. "When we finish that expedition, we hope to have enough Data to plan and define the construction of twenty other Momentums in sixteen other cities", says Brücke. When I ask her, if she would also contribute to their construction, she laughs loudly and points with her finger on one of the 15 meter long AutoBoats under the bloom docks. "This one, this is ours", she says.