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Maya Hotel Floating Pyramid Island In Caribbean Sea
The Maya Hotel, a vast floating pyramidal resort, is on the drawing board at Oceanic Creations, a Swedish-based company.
(Maya Hotel - a floating pyramid island hotel)
Oceanic Creations also intends to construct hotels, casinos, island cities and even movable vacation villages. The secret ingredient for all of these projects is a unique plastic composite material which offers built-in insulation that makes the constructions suitable for all types of climate, from the freezing cold to extreme heat. This remarkable material is reportedly up to six times lighter and 10 times stronger than steel (depending on the reinforcement material used). It is also claimed that it can cut maintenance costs by 30 to 40 percent.
"This material will prove very cost-effective for places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi who work a lot with landscaping and usually use sand and mud to build," said Stefan Holmgren, head of international marketing for Oceanic Creations."The good thing for us is that there are many cities that don't have a real solution to what do with their water. We will give them those solutions."
Science fiction fans have seen this future before. In his novel Saturn's Race, published in 2000, author Larry Niven writes about floating islands:
Xanadu was the second of the Floating Island chain of independent international corporate entities. Ultimately they would be strung along the world's equator; new islands bringing life to a watery desert. Six of the islands were in place, two as mere skeletons. From the air they looked a little like lily pads...
(Read more about Niven's floating islands)
Update 15-Apr-2017: See also this very early reference to a large floating island - the artificial island from Between Earth and Moon (1930) by Otfrid von Hanstein. End update.
More than $6.5 million has already been invested in the venture; the Maya Hotel is expected to cost $209 million to complete.
Via CNN.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/27/2007)
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