Up in the air: Ship deck and lounge chairs taken to a whole new level with the Aircruise
Is slow the new luxury? That’s the philosophy behind a conceptual design for a floating airship / hotel released by London-based firm Seymourpowell yesterday.
The Aircruise is a 265-meter high, kite-shaped airship with four hydrogen-filled envelopes that will carry a maximum of 100 guests and crew on extended voyages floating up to 12,000 feet above the earth.
While the theoretical design is capable of lifting up to 396,000 KG and air speeds of 150 KM per hour, designer Nick Talbot says zipping around the globe with tons of people packed on board is not the goal.
"The Aircruise concept questions whether the future of luxury travel should be based around space-constrained, resource-hungry, and all too often stressful airline travel," Nick Talbot, head of transportation at Seymourpowell, told CNN.
Talbot compares it to cruising in the sky, and while passengers won’t
be able to get off at ports, per se, the Aircruise offers the
tantalizing opportunity of taking in the world’s top sights while
hovering hundreds of feet above them.
"Imagine sitting in your stateroom and seeing the Serengeti below you or floating above the tallest skyscraper in the world," Talbot told CNN.
The Aircruise will have 10 private apartments for travelers to relax in, as well as spacious public spaces for dining and relaxing, according to designers who released this animation of what floating on the vessel may look like:
Even though the Aircruise is in a conceptual design phase, the firm has completed detailed work-ups of the engineering required and it has attracted the attention of one of the world’s most dynamic construction firms, reports the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Korea’s Samsung Construction and Trading, who just completed the tallest man-made structure the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is interested in investing in the project.
Seung Min Kim, design director at Samsung, said: "This was a dream concept project for us, helping to realize a future of sustainable buildings combined with innovative and luxury lifestyle."
Are you ready for slow travel on the Aircruise? What would it take to get you on board a giant floating airship? Or are we being taken for a (slow) ride by a media-savvy design firm (see comments below)?
"Imagine sitting in your stateroom and seeing the Serengeti below you or floating above the tallest skyscraper in the world," Talbot told CNN.
The Aircruise will have 10 private apartments for travelers to relax in, as well as spacious public spaces for dining and relaxing, according to designers who released this animation of what floating on the vessel may look like:
Even though the Aircruise is in a conceptual design phase, the firm has completed detailed work-ups of the engineering required and it has attracted the attention of one of the world’s most dynamic construction firms, reports the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Korea’s Samsung Construction and Trading, who just completed the tallest man-made structure the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is interested in investing in the project.
Seung Min Kim, design director at Samsung, said: "This was a dream concept project for us, helping to realize a future of sustainable buildings combined with innovative and luxury lifestyle."
Are you ready for slow travel on the Aircruise? What would it take to get you on board a giant floating airship? Or are we being taken for a (slow) ride by a media-savvy design firm (see comments below)?
The writer calls the whole thing a "conceptual design" in the first sentence.