Ocean levels are rising around the globe, so rather than tethering our buildings to the sinking shoreline why not suit them for a life at sea? That’s the approach behind the Water-Scraper, a futuristic self-sufficient floating city. A special mention in this year’s eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the design expands the concept of a floating island into a full-fledged underwater skyscraper that harvests renewable energy and grows its own food.
Touted as a self-sufficent floating city, Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum’s Water-Scraper utilizes a variety of green technologies. It generates its own electricity using wave, wind, and solar power and it produces its own food through farming, aquaculture, and hydroponic techniques. The surface of the submerged skyscraper sustains a small forest, while the lower levels contain spaces for its inhabitants to live and work. The building is kept upright using a system of ballasts aided by a set of squid-like tentacles that generate kinetic energy.
The architects “envision a future where land as a resource will be scarce; it is only natural progression that we create our own. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, even more if climate change has its way, hence it is only natural progression that we will populate the seas someday.” As anyone who has seen Waterworld will attest, it’s a grim future indeed — which is why it’s essential that we do what we can to stem the course of the world’s rising tides.
+ eVolo 2010 Skyscraper Competition
nice idea…but those sure look like coffins tethered to the end of the “tentacles”….
Great idea…..man this would be real cool in our region, the land of Sun.
Save on a lot and using nature to harness energy and food and enjoy both sides of planet Earth.
Now, if they were really genius, they’d use the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for their materials!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en4XzfR0FE8
I hope this design would be in a list of things to do when we face the danger of rising ocean surface so people would find alternative ways of living.
I hope it is not one more “green idea” of “buying a home for the weekend” because I am rich, if you know what I mean.
cool idea and i like the self-sustainable part, but what about the affect it will have on the eco-system in the water? it will be messing with the habitat of the sea and causing a serious lack of sunlight below and around these places possibly ruining both plants and sea creatures’ homes
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The sea would chew this thing up and spit it out in tiny little pieces.
one step closer to real-life bioshock, lol.
Those birds must have a wingspan of 100 meters. And the diver… OMG and how big are the sharks?
I don’t know if the artist or designer has ever been scuba diving before, but it doesn’t look like they’re aware of the fact that once you get down past 20 feet or so it starts getting dark really fast. If this thing is roughly as deep as the Empire State Building is tall, it’s gonna be permanent night basically at the bottom.
It will never exist… Sadly, maybe.
What scares me a tiny bit, but not to the point of insanity is this. That if his was created the only people who would be going to this is and surviving would be therich people and everyone else would probably be stuck on a land this getting smaller and smaller everday.
On a lighter side Kevin Costner will have gils