Architectural design frequently straddles a fine line between dignified inspiration and asshole lunacy. What's surprising is how close examples of that second type regularly come to being built, regardless of how obviously insane and/or impossible they are. Like ...

6 Freedom Ship: The Giant Floating City

freedomship.com

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The Freedom Ship -- taller than New York's Flatiron Building (the building used as The Daily Bugle in the Spider-Man movies), wider than two football fields, and almost a mile in length -- was designed as a floating city to take 100,000 residents, crew, and visitors on an everlasting voyage around the world. Luckily, no part of that sentence sounds completely insane, so you can head on over to the Freedom Ship's official website right now and make an official investment.

However, if you want to buy a residential unit on this floating commercial park, you can expect to pay anything from $150,000 to $10 million for the privilege (we assume the $150,000 homes are windowless utility closets next to the engines). Freedom Ship would have a multimillion-dollar hospital, a complete K-12 school system, a freaking subway system, landscaped parks, and an indoor rain forest, because we apparently learned nothing from the harsh lessons of the Rainforest Cafe. The designers insist that their brainchild is "not a cruise ship, but a fascinating and unique place to live, work, retire, vacation, or visit."

freedomship.com

"And also, a cruise ship."

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To keep its inhabitants safe from pirates, Freedom Ship would house a 2,000-strong security force armed with "state-of-the-art defensive weapons" to enforce the law of whichever nation the ship ultimately decided to sail under -- possibly a European country, but they were apparently leaning toward Panama, because Panama would basically allow them to do whatever the hell they pleased. Each deck of the ship would hold democratic elections for representatives, but final ultimate rule would be placed in the hands of the captain, because there has been absolutely no historical precedent of a system like that going horribly wrong.