A one George Costanza once wooed an impressionable young lady by telling her he was a marine biologist. It worked.
Something tells us Costanza’s charade will only prove more effective if this thing every becomes a reality.
This thing: French architect Jacques Rougerie’s “floating research center,” or, as he’s dubbed it, the City of Meriens. Architectural Digest says the structure, built to resemble a manta ray, would include “lecture halls, classrooms, labs, and sports facilities,” all meant to float the seven seas while training the next generation of oceanographers and marine life experts. It’s big enough to board 7,000 people and set to include its own lagoon, which would house smaller expedition vessels.
Perhaps most impressive is Rougerie’s plan for the structure’s self-sustainability, with food produced via aquaculture along either side of the lagoon’s access channel and a several-hundred-foot-high hydroponic greenhouse.
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