A Floating Island

I had a lot of fun with this one. Very early on I got the main idea of the Greek-style windmill with cloth sails, which would turn majestically rather than whirring about like a farm windmill. I put an observation deck around the windmill to give somewhere to go when you arrived at the island, and to give the opportunity to climb past the slowly creaking mechanism in the cool dark before emerging again into the sunlight, intermittently shaded by the calmly turning sails. The design of the gazebo was pretty standard.

Most of my design work went into the arrangement of these two main elements on the rafts, and the arrangement of the rafts themselves. I wanted something which would accomodate both active and quiet activity, and did this by making the area around the windmill have a jagged perimiter which would accomodate several boats easily, while the area around the gazebo had a smooth perimiter which would discourage people from docking right there. This was reinforced by a railing around the gazebo area. I think that in practice it would be possible for active people to splash in the fountain and climb the windmill while more sedate people sat in or near the gazebo and just watched the scenery.