Bloom is a futuristic take on marine farming designed by French firm Sitbon Architectes that was selected as one of five finalists for the first Architizer A+ Awards in the “architecture and weather” category. The spherical structure is designed to be a semi-submersible laboratory garden, cultivating microscopic marine organisms known as phytoplankton that produce oxygen and aid in reducing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The floating structure is designed to be tethered to the seabed by a series of cables and uses an advanced filtration system to make salt-water into fresh-water for the onboard residents. A permanent staff of scientists, researchers, and marine biologists would live aboard the vessel, monitoring the ongoing experiments and using the phytoplankton farms to lower carbon-dioxide levels in areas of need across the globe. Bloom would also be able to detect minute changes in the surrounding waters to help alert nearby nations of impending tsunamis. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to address both global warming and the rapidly rising sea-levels.
