Architects create a floating exhibition space in the form of a fish eye

Salmon Eye, a floating installation and exhibition space, has been unveiled in Norway's Hardangerfjord.

The forum will now aim to educate visitors about sustainable sea farming and protecting the sea and its many wondrous species, according to an article published by designboom last week.

Developed to look like a fish's eye

The building was designed by Danish architecture firm Kvorning Design and true to its mission it has been engineered to resemble a fish eye. That’s where the name “Salmon Eye” came from.

The structure uses stainless steel walls shaped like scales to imitate the appearance and color of fish eyes. The structure weighs 1,256 tonnes, has a diameter of 25 meters, and boasts four floors, one of which is underwater. Its entire interior is 650 sqm.

The idea for the Salmon Eye project first came about in 2019, but its design and construction was not undertaken till July 2021. The building was completed in August 2022 and had its official launch on September 8, 2022.

The idea of a floating building is not entirely new. In April of 2022, the Busan Metropolitan City of the Republic of Korea, and the blue tech company OCEANIX unveiled the world’s first prototype sustainable floating city.

The floating city, OCEANIX Busan, will now aim to provide breakthrough technology for coastal cities facing severe land shortages that are compounded by climatic threats. The city will serve as the "world's first prototype sustainable floating city," aiming to be "a flood-proof infrastructure that rises with the sea," supplying its own food, energy, and water.

Meanwhile, in June of 2022, the Maldives Floating City, an ambitious but need-of-the-hour project to build a floating city to counter rising sea levels, revealed its first house.

The project saw the cooperation of the government of the Maldives with architect Koen Olthuis, the founder of WaterStudio, a firm that specializes in building on water. The firm has designed over 300 floating structures around the world that are now functioning as homes, offices, schools, and even healthcare centers.

Yet another floating structure

Finally, four days ago, an architect in the Czech Republic unveiled the first original 3D-printed floating liveable sculpture from concrete called "Prvok.”

First introduced in the Vltava River in August 2020, Prvok can be made within 48 hours and is also considerably eco-friendly as it reduces CO2 emissions and waste. The home is fabricated with eco-technologies, meaning it is partially self-sufficient.

It seems like floating forums, homes, and even entire cities are quickly gaining popularity particularly as sea levels rise. Indeed, if global warming can not be stopped we will find more and more need for these floating structures as our land is bound to be overtaken by water.

It’s great to see that architects and engineers are thinking ahead and planning for a future that will seem a lot less dim if properly handled.