Architects’ visions for the future often take the shape of costly, large-scale utopias. Most of them never get built, others quickly turn into white elephants, decadent buildings in the future they were trying to anticipate. Yet a recent project seems to belong to a different breed.
Composed of a wood and plastic dome and a base of recycled plastic drums, the Jellyfish Barge is a floating greenhouse that desalinates seawater to irrigate and grow plants. Mimicking the natural phenomenon of the water cycle, one solar panel located by the base of the barge heats up the salted or polluted water and makes it evaporate, turning it into 150 liters per day of clean, fresh water. This water gets recycled over and over into a hydroponic system, which allows crops to grow in an inert bed of clay enriched by mineral nutrients.
