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Winner of 2008 innovation award takes holiday-goers to new platforms
4000 oil rigs in the Gulf Sea could be turned into 80 million sq ft of luxury resorts for the wealthy if Morris Architects, designer of the Oil Rig Resort and Spa concept have their way.
As the recent winning design of the Radical Innovation in Hospitality Award, the concept which would transform rigs which would otherwise be destroyed into capital-gaining resorts, is awarded fresh prestige, and the architects a $10,000 prize.
Each rig hotel would be able to accommodate over 300 guest rooms and luxury suites, a ballroom, restaurants, retail, pool and poolside bar as well as providing a marina for yachts, a casino, a dive bell for below sea excursions and facilities for water sports.
Encouraged as an ecological alternative to the destruction of the rigs which, according to Morris Architects, will all be decommissioned within the next century, the renovation would help to preserve the marine life gathered among the legs of the rigs. They would also function autonomously with alternative forms of energy production including wind, wave and solar.
The designers hope that the rigs could be used as ports of call for cruise ships travelling between the Caribbean and Mexico. Niki May Young
News Editor
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