Hollywood and theme parks have been walking arm in arm for years. But can they swim in sync?
Dubai, the second largest of the United Arab Emirates, is known for its gargantuan commercial building projects. The latest to be proposed is the world’s largest underwater theme park.
The creator of this five-acre aquatic experience is Los Angeles-based Reef Worlds, whose team includes film and television designers, dive-site developers, and marine biologists. CEO Patric Douglas notes that while scuba diving and snorkeling are a $3-billion-a-year business, most seaside venues don’t offer much in the way of special underwater experiences. “Many five-star resorts have one-star waterfronts,” says Douglas. Reef Worlds estimates there are 500,000 square miles of oceanfront at Caribbean and Asian hotels and resorts with limited appeal to adventurous tourists.
Douglas has been promoting the economic and ecological benefits of what he calls “habitat tourism,” which would give resort owners a way to monetize the waters off their beaches, while relieving some of the pressure from aquatic tourists on natural underwater reef systems that are endangered or dying.
Artificial reefs have been around for decades. Most were created with everything from sunken battleships to old tires—and most, says Douglas, are boring. “Who wants to look at a concrete triangle?” he asks. Reef Worlds intends to create “dynamic reefs” that would attract sea life, making them places people actually want to explore, he says. In Mexico, the company is developing an underwater art garden featuring 200 works of art that will take their cues from Mayan and Aztec iconography. Douglas calls this “Mayan Gods in 3D.”
Douglas says Reef Worlds will be able to bring in projects at 10-20% of the cost of a typical resort water theme park, which can run $70 million to build and $10 million a year to market and maintain.
Reef Worlds’ “Pearl of Dubai” project will be located in the waters around the World Islands development. Renderings suggest the park might be modeled after the mythic Lost City of Atlantis. Reef Worlds has five projects in varying stages of development in Dubai, Qatar, the Philippines, and Mexico.
Reef Worlds has had less success in the Caribbean: two years ago, Douglas found no takers when he offered $4.5 million to resorts in Jamaica to install underwater parks there. “It’s a vision thing,” he says, “and we’re playing the long game.”
Read about more innovations from BD+C's 2014 Great Solutions Report.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Goettsch Partners wins design competition for Soochow Securities HQ in China
Goettsch Partners (GP) has been selected as the winning firm in the competition to design the Soochow Securities Headquarters, the new office and stock exchange building for Soochow Securities Co. Ltd. The 21-story, 441,300-square-foot project includes 344,400 square feet of office space, an 86,100-square-foot stock exchange, meeting rooms, classrooms, a cafeteria, and underground parking for 400 cars and 800 bicycles.
| Aug 11, 2010
RMJM unveils design details for $1B green development in Turkey
International architecture company RMJM today announced details of the $1 billion Varyap Meridian development it is designing in Istanbul’s new residential and business district, which will be one of the "greenest" projects in Turkey. The luxury 372,000-square-meter development on a site totalling 107,000 square meters will be located in the Atasehir district of Istanbul, which the Turkish government intends to transform into the country’s new financial district and business center.
| Aug 11, 2010
Urban Land Institute honors five 'outstanding' developments in Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Five outstanding developments have been selected as winners of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) 2009 Awards for Excellence: Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) competition. This year, the competition also included the announcement of two special award winners. The Awards for Excellence competition is widely regarded as the land use industry’s most prestigious recognition program.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design firms slash IT spending in 2009
Over half of architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting firms (55%) are budgeting less for information technology in 2009 than they did in 2008, according to a new report from ZweigWhite. The 2009 Information Technology Survey reports that firms' 2009 IT budgets are a median of 3.3% of net service revenue, down from 3.6% in 2008. Firms planning to decrease spending are expected to do so by a median of 20%.
| Aug 11, 2010
A glimmer of hope amid grim news as construction employment falls in most states, metro areas
The construction employment picture brightened slightly with 18 states adding construction jobs from April to May according to a new analysis of data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). However, construction employment overall continued to decline, noted Ken Simonson, the chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils 'floating cube' design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and leaders from the Museum of Nature & Science unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park. Groundbreaking on the approximately $185 million project will be held later this fall, and the Museum is expected to open by early 2013.
| Aug 11, 2010
SOM's William F. Baker awarded Fritz Leonhardt Prize for achievement in structural engineering
In recognition of his engineering accomplishments, which include many of the tallest skyscrapers of our time, William F. Baker received the coveted Fritz Leonhardt Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. He is the first American to receive the prize.
| Aug 11, 2010
American Concrete Institute forms technical committee on BIM for concrete structures
The American Concrete Institute (ACI) announces the formation of a new technical committee on Building Information Modeling (BIM) of Concrete Structures.
