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ARK by Remistudio

07/07 2011 1 Response

Whether you are on the side of the Global Warming Activists or Sceptics, neither can deny that sustainable design is probably one of the most important and influential additions to design ideology in the last 50 years. One of the most exciting parts of sustainable design is all the great new concepts that have been thought up. With these concepts and innovations, we get to look at the design without being weighed down by a lot of marketing hype and settle down with the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘wouldn’t-this-be-awesomes’. It is unfortunate that most concepts never meter out to anything in the end and stay in the dreams and imaginations of those who created them, but it is always exciting to explore and experiment with these ideas.

image © & courtesy of Remistudio

A great new concept created by a Russian studio Remistudio, is called ARK. The name should be quite self explanatory, it is a concept for a floating platform that has the ability to remain self sufficient and support those who live on board. This particular design was for the “Architecture for Disaster Relief” campaign by the International Union of Architects. Each building can adapt to the environment, anything from rising sea levels to extreme seismic activity.

There is an elegance to the design, like a nautilus shell crossed with the old steam river boats. Of course the stability of the structure in the water, especially during a storm is questionable, but still it does appear to be fairly feasible. The construction of the building is rather neat too, it is almost buried underground till that time of disaster and then it will reveal all of its abilities.

The interior architecture is a little ambiguous especially as far as living space quota and what functions would need to be done on board the vessel. But it is clear from the sketches that there is a beautiful interior garden presumably to provide food, oxygen and to a degree some climate control. There are also some diagrams regarding internal ventilation using natural weather and temperature to provide a thermal convection system. It is also rather clever how the structure uses wind and the ocean temperatures to cool and power it at the same time.

image © & courtesy of Remistudio

The concept overall is quite unique and not too radical although the building techniques and materials would have to be. It’s ideas like that will one day (And possibly sooner than we can imagine.) be a very real reality and it these concepts are so important to sparking the imagination and ideas necessary to our daily lives. The future no matter how bleak some people make it sound could be quite fantastic.