NonA Weekly: OIL RIGS RECLAIMED 🏗️
Image by @HydroEnergy
Dear readers and friends,
The birth of the offshore industry 🏭 dates back to the years following the end of the Second World War.
Italy was the first in Europe to install a platform, exactly in 1959 and since then, almost 200 of the various Mediterranean oil 🛢️ platforms have been installed 🏗️ during the economic boom. Only a quarter of them in the 1990s has been dismantled ⚒️. In the upper Adriatic area, various assemblies of gas extraction persist and will be gradually dismantled 🧰. And yet with the massive amount of costs involved 📈, reflection on their reuse in architectural terms is still uncharted.
1. 7 WAYS TO REUSE OBSOLETE PLATFORMS 🚧
Thousands of decommissioned oil rigs rotting in waters all over the globe could get a new sense of PURPOSE as diving resorts 🤿, cruise ship 🚢 port-of-calls, recreation destinations, bio-habitats or even autonomous micro-nations.
2. OFFSHORE OIL PLATFORMS ARE REIMAGINED AS SELF-SUSTAINING HOMES 🏡
As the world looks for sustainable housing solutions to meet the needs of a burgeoning population, Paris-based design firm XTU Architects has unveiled a CONCEPTUAL design that would convert old oil platforms into plant-covered homes 🍃 of the future. The project, X_Lands, would provide self-sustaining homes to families 👪 and transform a global symbol of pollution into a beacon of sustainability.
3. COULD WE TURN OIL RIGS INTO HOMES? 🏠
The challenges the world faces with a changing climate and resource management will require 🧠 innovative, novel IDEAS. As sea levels begin to rise, the Maldives islands 🏝️ will be one of the first to feel its effects. Mayank’s solution; recommission Indian Ocean oil rigs into floating, living, communities.
4. OIL RIG REPURPOSED AS VISITOR ATTRACTION 🔭
Seemonster, a DESIGN experiment led by Newsubstance, seeks to encourage visitors and designers to “look optimistically forward” 🧐 in the field of renewable approaches.
5. OFFSHORE OIL RIG THEME PARK 🎪 RESORT: ADAPTIVE REUSE DONE RIGHT?
Recently, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced that it will be building 🏗️ theme park resorts 🎢 aboard offshore oil rigs. This is in line with its aim to go net zero by 2060.
6. REPURPOSING OFFSHORE OIL INFRASTRUCTURE TO SAVE THE PLANET 🌍
When most people think of climate change, they focus on the atmosphere. In truth, it is our OCEANS, lakes, and other water resources 🌊 that serve as the bulwark in preserving a livable climate and are closer to collapse than most realize. Indeed, the acceleration 📈 of climate change will reach a whole new level when our oceans and lakes reach a saturation point and cease to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
7. CAN WE 🤔 REPURPOSE DECOMMISSIONED OIL RIGS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GAIN?
A conversation with Emily Callahan and Amber Jackson of the firm Blue Latitudes, which consults on projects 🏗️ where retired rigs are transformed into reefs and hotels 🛌.
Stay creative and see you all next week! 👋
Daniela
