Frustrating Comparison: Boat Vs City

I’m a little frustrated trying to write a research paper on the cruise ship within the framework of my thesis. So, I am just going to write down some thoughts, and not edit, or censor… and maybe this will help get me out of this rut.

I've been trying to compare a cruise ship to the city. (in the framework of my thesis where the city is contained all within one building or campus). There are some obvious connections to be made. Cruise ships are generally self supporting. At least in the manner that for a week, all essential functions of housing, feeding, entertaining, keeping safe, the passengers of the boat along with the crew, takes place all in the same place. This is the obvious connection. Where this connection begins to fall apart… at least in the framework of my thesis, is that all the people on board can fall within two distinguishable and identifiable classes. You either pay to be on the boat, or you get paid to be on the boat. These two classes are very different and beyond one serving the other there is no intermingling. So while I am trying to compare how this is similar to a building as a city, it is difficult, because the boundaries of participation are much more blurry. The people who live in a city perform more than one activity, work, play, entertaining, etc. The people who are on these cruise ships either, play or work. So to compare the spaces in which these people use and how the spaces are connected, is a little weak within the framework of the comparison.

Another obvious similarity is the diverse range of spaces. When I look at the spaces by themselves, the comparison seems to work fairly well. In the city there is a diverse range of activities, and a diverse type of space to serve the activities, and within the types of spaces there is great diversity is quality and style, size and shape. Lets look at housing on the cruise ship for example. For the employees, there is a range of bare tiny rooms without windows that several people share, to the captain’s suite which is large and well appointed. The passengers have nearly the same range, from the interior cabin with no window, barely room for a bed or two and a toilet, to the grand suites, which can have several rooms, and feel and look more like a small apartment, some even with double height spaces. OK… but what is point. What can I really learn from this?

The same thing happens when I look at the program… dining, food prep, entertainment, theaters, bars, casinos, engine rooms, incinerators, power plants, housing, the spaces that connect all of these things. It is a big building… (coincidentally, when boats are commissioned to be built the are called “newbuildings”) so what. When I look at the way the decks are laid out, there are cabin decks and entertainment decks, and most of the ships have very large and tall atriums that span many decks. But in the framework of a building, the way these things are laid out is rather… normal. The dirty work happens at the bottom and the people who do that work live there too. The next level up you have dining and entertainment, retail shopping, etc. Then above that is where the cabins are… and on top of that is the roof, where a mixture of things happen… but still there is really nothing new here. Mechanical in the basement, Retail at the street level, living above, and some fun on the roof.


This is the actual text of the paper that I have been working on… but it is just junk.

An Urban Comparison

The length is one thousand, one hundred and thirty two feet, and height is two hundred and thirty six feet. The population is three thousand, eight hundred and seventy four. There are 14 bars, 10 restaurants, 2 pools, a theater, a spa, a casino, a sports facility, a medical facility, a power plant, a water treatment center, an incinerator, and much more. There is a little bit of everything here. One might this that is the description of a city, or a downtown area. This is a description of the size and amenities of the Queen Mary 2, an ocean liner.
The modern cruise ship is a marvel of engineering, naval architecture, and interior design and planning. The ships are designed to cater to the every need of it’s passengers who have booked trips for vacations, special occasions, and now with the advent of ships such as The World, and The Freedom Ship, a continuous life of luxury on the sea. The thought of a cruise ship often evokes images of pools, and grand dining and ball rooms, casinos and theaters, bars, and dance clubs. Often overlooked though are these ships also must meet the needs of the crew and staff that serve the ship and its passengers, making each ship a virtual microcosm of social, national, ethnic and economic diversity. It is no wonder why cruise ships have been called floating cities. The proposal of my thesis is in part to create an entire city in one place from scratch. There are understandably many differences between a city and a cruise ship, for the framework of my thesis I will attempt to look at the similarities.

Diversity of Program
The opening paragraph of this article lists several of the many spaces that are included on a boat. The most obvious similarity between a city and the cruise ship is the diversity of program, and spaces. From housing, to entertainment, from the captain’s bridge to the engine room there are hundreds of different program spaces to meet the requirements of the passengers and the crew.


Basically, I spent all weekend reading different books about cruise ships, most of which are really a history of boats, and businesses rather than anything interesting about the thought or intention behind the design of the boats, and haven’t really learned squat. ARGGHH…

So in conclusion… it is just neat that a cruise ship houses so many different people, so many different functions, creates a lot of its own power, recycles its own waste, and all this happens in one building. Dandy. Now how does it sit on my site. Ooohh… I can build a boat on the river. (that’s sarcasm) I’m gonna go home now and stop wrestling with this for a while.