Inverted, ocean-bound “seascrapers”: aqua-communes for the future?
Tech Tuesday, March 9th, 2010You guys, I’m freaking out about how cool these things could be. A recent skyscraper concept competition yielded some really interesting designs , among them this utterly amazing concept , which they inexplicably call a “water-scraper” instead of the decidedly more euphonious “seascraper,” as I have dubbed it. Think of it: a partially self-contained structure floating in calm seas, growing food, harvesting wave energy, and providing a home for… well, not that many people, but more than a few. Wrap your mind around it! It’s glorious! It’s beautiful! It’s quite possibly green! And once you got your sea-legs, it’d be just like living in any other arcology . Oh, there aren’t any yet? Well maybe that’s because they didn’t think to build them at sea! Clearly these are idealized, and likely fail to account for a number of factors like storage space for food and products, waste management, and that sort of thing, but I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a cluster of these things (as they indeed suggest), each one specializing in this or that. Really at this point I’m just laying the foundation for the sci-fi novella I’m going to have to write on account of all the imagineering going on in my head following this post. Want so bad. [via Inhabitat ]