Inverted, ocean-bound "seascrapers": aqua-communes for the future?

You guys, I’m freaking out about how cool these things could be. A recent skyscraper concept competition yielded some really interesting designs, among them this utterly amazing concept, which they inexplicably call a “water-scraper” instead of the decidedly more euphonious “seascraper,” as I have dubbed it. Think of it: a partially self-contained structure floating in calm seas, growing food, harvesting wave energy, and providing a home for… well, not that many people, but more than a few.

Wrap your mind around it! It’s glorious! It’s beautiful! It’s quite possibly green! And once you got your sea-legs, it’d be just like living in any other arcology. Oh, there aren’t any yet? Well maybe that’s because they didn’t think to build them at sea!

Clearly these are idealized, and likely fail to account for a number of factors like storage space for food and products, waste management, and that sort of thing, but I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a cluster of these things (as they indeed suggest), each one specializing in this or that. Really at this point I’m just laying the foundation for the sci-fi novella I’m going to have to write on account of all the imagineering going on in my head following this post.

Want so bad.

[via Inhabitat]