Imagine: 4,000 Abandoned Oil Rigs as … Luxury Hotels?
Morris Architects‘ idea of turning abandoned oil rigs into residential resorts is, itself, a brilliant and offbeat one. The notion of doing this with 4,000 soon-to-be-deserted ones? Potentially revolutionary. Combined, this would yield a whopping 80,000,000 available square feet spread around the sunny Gulf of Mexico.
The wonderful idea comes complete with a fantasy of carrying people out to their sea-borne condos, homes and hotels via container ships, using the universal cargo container unit as a central building block to the designs – and providing a luxurious mode of transport in the process.
How realistic? Well, BLDGBLOG speculates on the potential future of these structures as partially-completed-then-abandoned derelict heaps slowly taken over by squatters and sea pirates, painting dark imagery of what might happen in their latter years. All in all, these pictures each present fascinating possibilities for the future of sea-based abandonments.
Via 50SA:
“Sponsored by the John Hardy Group and Hospitality Design Magazine, the international design competition focused on innovations in hospitality. The Morris design team wanted to take advantage of an abandoned oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and reuse the structure, transforming it into a vibrant and commercially viable destination. The luxury resort offers many amenities including interaction with the surrounding ocean – boating, snorkeling, diving and other water sports. The Rig Hotel will also draw in conferences and business meetings, and will serve as a cruise ship’s main port of call en route to other locations in Mexico and the Caribbean.”
“Situated in the middle of the ocean, the Rig Hotel will need to be as autonomous as possible, generating all off ts own power from renewable energy, most notably via a large vertical axis wind turbine affixed to one of its foundation towers. Wind power tends to be far more efficient off-shore than on-shore, and the turbine will meet a significant portion of the Rig’s energy demands. Wave energy generators will be buoyed nearby with undersea cables to transmit the power.”
