Project: Under
Arcitecture: Snøhetta
Geo: Lindesnes, Norway
Since 2000, there has been a permanent crew on the ISS, yet there are no residential houses underwater. Paradoxically, space is closer than the bottom of our own ocean.
The idea of settling humans underwater came to Jules Verne in 1869, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the inventor of the scuba gear, took on the challenge. From 1962 to 1965, his team built Conshelf: three houses at depths ranging from 10 to 100 meters. In the last one, six aquanauts lived for 22 days, working with a model of an oil rig. This determined the fate of the project.
Conshelf was funded by the oil industry, which was looking for ways to inhabit the continental shelf for extraction. Submarines and robots turned out to be cheaper, and the program was discontinued. Cousteau himself became disillusioned with the dream and spent the rest of his life making films about ocean conservation.
The series "The Underwater Odyssey of the Cousteau Team" aired in the USSR for decades: the captain was recognized, and his legacy was taken up by enthusiasts. In 1966, a club in Donetsk called Ikhtiandr built an iron module for two and submerged it off Cape Tarkhankut at a depth of 11 meters. Scientists later joined in: in 1969, on the day of the Soyuz-6 flight, the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute placed the Sadko-3 house at a depth of 27 meters, resembling a rocket. In 1977, Muscovites from the Dolphin Club lowered a canvas hydrostat called Sprut under the ice of the drifting station North Pole-23. It remains the only underwater house in polar latitudes.
No one has progressed beyond 100 meters. The culprit is physics: every 10 meters of water adds an atmosphere of pressure, and the shape of a house is reduced to a sphere or cylinder, with an air supply tethered to the surface. Without it, the house becomes Atlantis within a day.
Architects returned to the ocean through the experience industry. In 2019, Snøhetta opened Under restaurant in southern Norway with the world’s largest underwater window. Its concrete walls were left rough to allow algae and mussels to grow on them, turning the facade into part of a reef. The first underwater hotel, Jules' Undersea Lodge in Florida, was once a research station in Puerto Rico, miniaturizing the entire idea’s journey.
The ocean remains a territory for observation, but humans have learned to dine there. Perhaps that’s for the best?
@gorkjournal · GORK
3D · Photo · Render · AI
Arcitecture: Snøhetta
Geo: Lindesnes, Norway
Since 2000, there has been a permanent crew on the ISS, yet there are no residential houses underwater. Paradoxically, space is closer than the bottom of our own ocean.
The idea of settling humans underwater came to Jules Verne in 1869, and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the inventor of the scuba gear, took on the challenge. From 1962 to 1965, his team built Conshelf: three houses at depths ranging from 10 to 100 meters. In the last one, six aquanauts lived for 22 days, working with a model of an oil rig. This determined the fate of the project.
Conshelf was funded by the oil industry, which was looking for ways to inhabit the continental shelf for extraction. Submarines and robots turned out to be cheaper, and the program was discontinued. Cousteau himself became disillusioned with the dream and spent the rest of his life making films about ocean conservation.
The series "The Underwater Odyssey of the Cousteau Team" aired in the USSR for decades: the captain was recognized, and his legacy was taken up by enthusiasts. In 1966, a club in Donetsk called Ikhtiandr built an iron module for two and submerged it off Cape Tarkhankut at a depth of 11 meters. Scientists later joined in: in 1969, on the day of the Soyuz-6 flight, the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute placed the Sadko-3 house at a depth of 27 meters, resembling a rocket. In 1977, Muscovites from the Dolphin Club lowered a canvas hydrostat called Sprut under the ice of the drifting station North Pole-23. It remains the only underwater house in polar latitudes.
No one has progressed beyond 100 meters. The culprit is physics: every 10 meters of water adds an atmosphere of pressure, and the shape of a house is reduced to a sphere or cylinder, with an air supply tethered to the surface. Without it, the house becomes Atlantis within a day.
Architects returned to the ocean through the experience industry. In 2019, Snøhetta opened Under restaurant in southern Norway with the world’s largest underwater window. Its concrete walls were left rough to allow algae and mussels to grow on them, turning the facade into part of a reef. The first underwater hotel, Jules' Undersea Lodge in Florida, was once a research station in Puerto Rico, miniaturizing the entire idea’s journey.
The ocean remains a territory for observation, but humans have learned to dine there. Perhaps that’s for the best?
@gorkjournal · GORK
3D · Photo · Render · AI