| Summary: | The rise of buoyant urbanism, in the form of floating developments, amphibious architecture, and floating cities; has introduced a new dimension to the traditional understanding of what is ‘real estate’. These innovative forms of development continue to gain prominence and need to be promoted and protected. To engage with the threat of climate change, and the growing incursion of water in our urban spaces, there is a need to ensure appropriate recognition of related property rights and interests. Concurrently, there is a need for valuation of those rights and interests to be linked to a recognised land tenure system to support investment within the Blue Economy. Therefore, our starting point is to develop an international system of recognising, protecting, and articulating the underlying tenure. This paper aims to extend previous research concerning how floating structures are a unique species of property capable of having tenure. However, there are tensions in property law (across common law and civil jurisdictions) concerning these structures, which manifest a rigid view of what is real property. By means of a case study, the solution proposed posits floating structures as a new class of real property within international waters (the global commons). Thereby, if the law understands floating structures as a resource capable of registration akin to real property, the structure itself will be afforded proprietary interests. As the Torrens system of land titling (title by registration) was developed from concepts underlying the registration of vessels, it is now time to return Torrens to the Seas. In doing so, the proposed buoyant urban registration system will be conceived to achieve sustainable use of marine resources under the Blue Economy.
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