OFFSHORE ECO-PLATFORMS: The Stewards of the Seas (HD)

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• published: 19 Nov 2013
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Multifunctional complexes and sustainable resorts located out on the Sea and networked with their Cities We have devised systems that will serve as urban landmarks. They will work as recycling water plants, renewable energy power plants (solar, wind, tidal, bio-gas and geothermal), marine biology laboratories, and as inhabitable sculptures! The pride of their citizens. When thinking about the way societies and cities would grow in the future, the exploitation of resources and contamination of land, air and water will be the major factors determining if they could develop organized, responsible and positive or chaotic destructive and threatened. The greatest problems could be first mitigated and then solved by restructuring the way cities work: 1. The centralized provision of basic needs. It has to be helped by other providers, locally, decentralized! 2. The energy crisis, dependency on fossil fuels, contamination, expansion of landfills, depletion of groundwater tables and potable water contamination! 3. The wasteful and irresponsible behavior. We have to set the example that the opposite is possible, profitable and enjoyable! 4. The pollution of coastal cities. We must clean them! 5. very little is done to repair what has already been damaged! 6. The increase and misuse of land occupation. We have to find our home-place somewhere else, in the sea! Our solution: The first residential, commercial and Eco-tourism luxury resorts in an Eco-energy power farm and water recycling plant standing on a marine platform complex! Inspired by the City of Cancun, the capital of tourism in the Mayan Riviera -which in the year 2020 will celebrate its 50th founding anniversary-, a complex was conceived adapting the meaning of "kaan kun" (Nest of Snakes) and the magical legend of the Mayan Serpent God in its design. This Eco-platform was called "Grand Cancun" and condensed all ideas on self-sustainability explored in several projects and lectures. The Grand Cancun was conceived from the core to fight global warming (i.e. CO2 emissions). The systems on it contribute to the environment. resets urbanism towards the new clean metropolis, projecting the pride of a "sense of purpose" on its residents, amplifying the interest of its visitors and serving as a platform for business and finance, including luxury Eco-tourism. The standard Offshore Eco-Platform will be a mega-building, an offshore city standing on stilts where hotels, shopping malls, convention-congress centers, cinemas and loads more will provide all the needs and experiences available in a small city, while being totally self-sufficient, having a zero-carbon-footprint, and providing the surrounding land community with drinking water and energy from renewable resources! But the most interesting thing is that it will clean the seas! The shape of the building, its waterfront, and the coastal line will direct water right through waste collectors for floating solids and hydrocarbons. The water will be also nourished and purified to increase marine life. Above the water everything is planned to care for the environment, and about motivating people to share the responsibility. Grand Cancun will generate surplus of clean, local renewable energy and alleviate to some extend the city's energy needs. Solar panels will cover most of light-facing areas, including see-through photovoltaic polymers on transparent surfaces. Every residential block on the tower will have vertical wind turbines and solar panels.. There are also underwater energy collectors of tidal and wave energy, Geothermal energy collectors according to location, and waste-to-biogas power plants by anaerobic digestion. The lower level of the platforms would hold all the power plants and energy storage systems. Like all existing oil platforms, the project would contain large desalination plants producing drinking water for all the users of the complex and some for the community. All rainwater will be collected and reused. Wastewater is not wasted! It will be recycled, purified and reused for gardens. Here there is a chance to study and monitor the marine development of the Eco-platforms by installing marine biology laboratories and environmental studies/sustainable energy university departments. When this new green architecture gets built, it will reset around the globe the standards about what is possible and ideal as a resort, and will change the way we see our cities forever. The best of the idea is that eventually his building concept will be replicated in such a scale that the return to pristine clean beaches will definitively be there for our grandchildren to enjoy. The feasibility of the platforms is enormous considering the many different types of platforms and mooring available now, prepared to take any environmental conditions in all geographical locations, including eventually some far in the middle of the oceans, cleaning, protecting, generating. The ultimate stewards of the seas!