Even without the threat of rising sea levels, we’ve got land scarcity issues in nearly every major city, prompting engineers and architects to look towards the rivers and seas as settings for floating structures that could support not just housing and restaurants but also farms, movie theaters, schools and even cemeteries.

Floating Movie Theater: Pavilion of Reflections

Assembled on Lake Zurich for the contemporary art biennial Manifesta 11, ‘Pavilion of Reflections’ is an open-air floating cinema with an integrated swimming pool that dips right into the lake. In the daytime, it functions as an urban island, while at night , the LED screen lights up and spectators take their seats to watch a series of documentaries.

Floating Hawker Center: Solar Orchid for Singapore

Singapore’s traditional hawker culture of food and retail street carts extends out onto the water with the Solar Orchid by SPARK Architects. The self-contained, solar-powered pods encourage interaction with the harbor while reinterpreting the nation’s traditional pastime. Each individual pod accommodates cooking stalls with built-in exhaust, water, electrical, gas, waste collection and water recycling services as well as places for diners to sit.

Floating Eternity Cemetery for Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a bit of a corpse burial problem, as they run out of land space even for their efficient hillside cemeteries and skyscraper vaults. Could a floating cemetery island that’s able to move from one port to the next throughout the region offer a solution? It’s certainly a novel idea. The Floating Eternity Cemetery by BREAD Studio leaves the land for the living with an exterior looping wall housing urns and central space for ceremonies. Families can come aboard at certain times of year to honor their dead, making it a special, shared experience, before the offshore cemetery moves along again.

Floating Swimming Pool: Baltic Sea Park

When you run out of land for parks, build them on the water. This way of thinking is spreading across the world, from New York City to Estonia, envisioned as the home of this ‘Baltic Sea Park’ by kilometrezero. The circular pavilion honors thousands of years of history and cultural exchange on the Baltic Sea, and connects buildings on land to a floating structures that acts as a dock for a changing series of floating pavilions. In the summer, the protected circle of water within it becomes a giant swimming pool.

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Looking Beyond Land 12 Floating Galleries Schools Cemeteries

Built in 1986 in the hopes of enticing diners who were gravitating toward more high-end fare, this now-abandoned floating McDonalds might just be the saddest-looking fast food ruin around. Known as the ‘McBarge,’ it’s been anchored in Burrad Inlet near Vancouver, Canada since its debut and served its last Big Mac in 1991.

The idea was to show off the future of technology and architecture while also attempting to regain some of the market share it lost during an ‘80s trend toward bistros and boutiques.

How, exactly, McDonald’s aimed to do that with a clunky-looking barge serving the same old menu is unclear. The chain dropped $12 million on the floating fast food joint and four other locations built just for Expo ’86 in Vancouver, thinking they could simply move the barge elsewhere if it didn’t catch on.

For whatever reason, it was never reopened, and hasn’t budged from its apparently permanent spot in the inlet. Owner Howard Meaking proposed renovating it into the showpiece of a new waterfront development along the Fraser River in 2009, but the city council still hasn’t approved the idea.

A group called ‘Vancouver’s Worst Ghost Hunters’ took a tour of the abandoned barge, using a legal loophole to get aboard and filming the experience. Check out the (surprisingly vermin-free) interior in the video (Images via Wikimedia Commons, Ashley Fisher/Flickr Creative Commons).

You’ll have a hard time chewing with your mouth closed as you dine at these incredible jaw-dropping establishments around the world, from a hanging cliffside restaurant in China to a cantilevered overlook at a ski resort in France. Forget minding your manners, because whether you’re at a slightly silly theme restaurant that feels like being dropped into Game of Thrones or an all-white cafe decorated with 10,000 bones, you won’t be able to help gawking at your surroundings. Running these businesses would be a challenge given their immense popularity. So using a paas system in order to build apps that help run the business in a smooth manner is essential. If you are asking yourself what is paas, then you want to investigate further.

Hueso Bone Restaurant, Guadalajara, Mexico

As long as you’re not squeamish about looking at hundreds of bones as you eat, you’ll have an incredible meal at Hueso (‘Bone’), a stylish modern Guadalajara restaurant with a very precise 10,000 bones tucked into every available nook, niche and wall surface. The concept restaurant, located in a 1940s home, features a graphic black-and-white tile exterior inspired by stitching and sewing patterns. The design, by Cadena + Asociados, was “inspired by a Darwinian vision.”

Labassin Waterfall Restaurant, Phillippines

Guests at Villa Esucdero in San Pablo City, the Philippines had better be wearing water-resistant shoes when they take a seat at the Labassin restaurant, where bamboo dining tables await beside a roaring waterfall. Only a few inches of water stream over the artificial waterfall, making it safe to walk right up to it and lean against it if you so desire, so guests often mix their dining experience with water play. The restaurant is attached to a church converted to a museum, and located in an area with some of the richest biodiversity in the world.

Medieval Tavern Brabant, Prague, Czech Republic

You could go to Tavern Brabant for the somewhat silly historical medieval show, or just to gawp at the surroundings and pretend like you’re in Game of Thrones. You pay a flat fee to enter, watch the show, feast on all you can eat, and enjoy two large drinks. It’s located along Prague’s Royal Way in Old Town and features (presumably) fake skulls set into the stone walls.

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Rangali Island, Maldives

The world’s first all-glass undersea restaurant sits 16 feet beneath the surface of the sea just off Maldives, offering a 270-degree view of a coral reef. Expect to pay at least $120 for lunch as a hotel guest – and you’d better have a reservation. The restaurant is accessed via a spiral staircase descending from a pavilion at the end of a jetty.

Restaurant in the Sky

The traveling ‘Dinner in the Sky‘ restaurant brings a 29-foot table seating 22 people to stunning locations all over the world, suspending diners hundreds of feet above the ground. Dangling from a crane, the table is entirely open-air, so you’d better not be afraid of heights. Dinner packages typically start at around $300 per person. The company also offers special packages like ‘Party in the Sky,’ ‘Wedding in the Sky’ and ‘Meeting in the Sky,’ if you’re so inclined.

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16 Jaw Dropping Restaurants

From massive illuminated Chinese restaurants to cute little BBQ tables for ten, these 14 floating restaurants make smart use of available space and turn the dining experience into something of an adventure on the sea.

Jumbo Floating Restaurant, Hong Kong

(images via: wikimedia commons)

One of Hong Kong’s biggest attractions, the Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurant sites within the city’s Aberdeen Harbour and has hosted the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and John Wayne. Though it began as a relatively humble floating restaurant in the ’70s, a 2003 renovation basically turned it into a theme park with sightseeing, shopping and cultural attractions.

BBQ Donut’s Floating Restaurant Tables, Germany

(images via: bbq-donut.de)

Germany’s BBQ Donut restaurant is definitely one-of-a-kind. First of all, its floating tables, which have seating for ten, make smart use of water space and are quite a novelty draw. At the center of each of these tables is a BBQ that turns into a picnic table. Each floating pod has its own built-in sound system and even silent electric propulsion so it can cruise around.

The Salt & Sill Restaurant & Hotel, Sweden

(images via: salt to sill)

The Salt & Sill is a minimalist 23-room barge that also serves as a top-notch seafood restaurant specializing in herring and fresh local produce. All 23 rooms have their own outdoor seating areas, but the hotel’s sole suite has an extra-enticing benefit: a private roof-top jacuzzi. The hotel’s location on the lake, by the way, is not a gimmick: the adjacent land simply didn’t have any room.

Sea Palace, Amsterdam

(images via: jylcat, hotel belga)

The ornate Sea Palace is Europe’s first floating Chinese restaurant, and is located near Central Station in Amsterdam. Its pagoda-style exterior is definitely not a sight you would expect to see in Amsterdam, but floating Chinese restaurants like Sea Palace are actually not uncommon in Europe.

Nusa Penida Island Floating Restaurant, Indonesia

(images via: nusaisland.wordpress.com)

Just off the small island of Nusa Penida, which is itself located near Indonesia’s Bali Island, is this cool-looking floating restaurant. The massive pontoon restaurant can be found just off Toya Pakeh beach.

Restaurants of Cat Ba Bay, Vietnam

(images via: phil_marion)

Vietnam’s Cat Ba Bay is home to several floating restaurants, which make for an interesting sight as they bob in the water alongside floating homes and fishing boats. Most of them are, of course, seafood restaurants.

Veli Lake Floating Restaurant, Trivandrum

(images via: skyscraper city)

This pretty floating restaurant can be found in Veli Lake in Trivandrum, India. The restaurant is connected to the mainland by a floating bridge.

Rustar Dhow Floating Restaurant, Dubai

(images via: rustardowboat.com)

Rustar Dhow is the world’s largest floating restaurant that actually cruises around instead of just staying in one place. It’s located in – of course – Dubai, where everything is bigger and more ornate than it is everywhere else in the world. The Rustar Dhow can carry up to 400 passengers at a time.

William Thornton Floating Bar & Restaurant, Norman Island

(images via: gogobot)

Anchored out in the water off Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands, ‘The Willy T’ is only accessible by boat. This floating bar and restaurant is known locally as one of the wildest ‘party barges’ in the area. It’s been in operation since 1985 and offers both lunch and dinner.

Petit Verdot at the Riviera on Vaal, South Africa

(images via: safari now)

The Petit Vardo floating restaurant is located adjacent to the Riviera on Vaal Hotel, which is in the Vaal River about 45 minutes from Johannesburg in South Africa. The barge is topped with an exposed dining deck, and the whole thing is illuminated at night like a giant floating lantern.

India’s Kettuvallam

(images via: noo)

In the Indian state of Kerala, beautiful houseboats with thatched roofs are a common sight floating on the water. Many of these luxury houseboats are open to tourists, who can come onboard and relax while enjoying a freshly cooked meal from the boat’s kitchen.

Tattershall Castle, London

(images via: wikimedia commons)

Moored in the River Thames in London, the PS Tatterhsall Castle is a former passenger and goods ferry built in 1934. During World War II, it was the first civil vessel to carry radar, but by 1973 the ship had run its course and was retired from service. Since 1981, it has been a popular bar and restaurant.

The Plastic Dining Room, Vancouver

(images via: inhabitat)

This lovely little floating dining room made by the School of Fish Foundation is held aloft by 1,672 plastic bottles. Made of reclaimed pinewood, the dining room serves an elegant six-course sustainable seafood menu catered by C Restaurant.

Cincinnati’s Waterfront, the Restaurant That Floated Away

(images via: eater)

Have you been wondering this whole time whether the docked floating restaurants ever escape from their moorings? It has, in fact, happened. Waterfront, a floating restaurant near Cincinnati, broke free in March of 2011 with 83 diners on board. The diners had to be rescued using “a makeshift gangplank of ladders and ropes” while the restaurant was saved from floating too far downriver by tugboats. Unfortunately, the accident caused a lot of damage and the restaurant has not been re-opened.