Floating Garden Whale No Relation to Fail Whale
Everyone who has a twitter account knows Fail Whale – that peaceful creature who is carried in by swallows, the nation bird of the hipster, and dropped on your crappy network connection. Luckily the Water Bubble Floating Whale Garden in Europe is unrelated. In fact, if you are lucky enough to see this garden / ferry roaming down river near you it’s a good thing. The project is not just esthetically pleasing, it is also (unbeknown to passengers) cleaning the waters below.
Vincent Callebaut Architects created Physalia – a name taken from “Physalia physalis”, meaning “water bubble.” The project idea came from a “major global issue which is the fact that one billion people nowadays don’t have access to drinking water.” One huge water filtration system will filter dirty water below, releasing cleaner liquid from the vessel’s stern.
Physalia’s prototype will reportedly make more energy than it consumes. Solar cells and a double pneumatic membrane will form the roof of the construction and similar technologies will be used in order to reach its energy goal. Inside, four themed gardens called “Water” “Earth” “Fire” and “Air” (what about Heart?) will captivate those wandering inside, while anyone outside looking downstream will need to do a double-take. Once constructed, this eco-whale will be present on the waters of Seine, Thames, Volga, Danube, Escaut.
The Source: fluxarchitecture
Physalia physalis does not mean water bubble, but Portuguese Man-O’-War. (The name derives from physalis, which means bladder, so it effectively means something like bladder-creature from the family of bladder-creatures.)