Sea Tree – New Home for Birds, Insects and Sea Life

Giant Sea Tree will protect wildlife from the cities

Everything on the Earth deserves a place called home. Even animals have their own places, where they feel safe, where they raise their young ones and where they sleep. And we are not doing particularly well in coexisting with these creatures living on the Earth which is also their home. The reality is that population of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have dropped an average 52 percent over the past 40 years with freshwater species down by horrifying 76 percent.

The cities, we are so eagerly constructing now, are uninhabitable for the species that were here long before us. The level of development is pushing them farther out into forests that are reducing faster than we can imagine. It is also believed that this is the reason why diseases as Nipah, Hendra, Ebola, Marburg and SARS spread from wild animals to farm animals and to us.

This should concern all of us. Koen Olthius from Netherlands is working in architectural firm called Waterstudio. Olthius has come up with great idea, how we can return something back to the animals that can’t afford to leave the cities. The design was named Sea Tree.

As a name gives a hint, it is a form of tree. It is based on floating oil platforms – large, shelved structures that sit in the ocean for storage. Each level is a home for different type of habitat. Birds could go and come as they please and have nests away from roads, people and all sorts of traps.

“We took park zones in urban areas; we divided this in pieces and put them vertically on the top of each other. In the end it became a vertical hangout for wildlife. Our inspiration came from a project in Holland where ecologist forced us to provide habitats to animals that couldn’t be disturbed by people. Water is, of course, perfect way to keep people away,“ said Olthius to Adele Peters at Fast Company.  

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This is not one of the project, that might seem like “I will design something so I have nicer portfolio” type. Sea tree is ready to start to build as soon as possible. Waterstudio also hopes, that there are some companies that will help them, such as oil companies, to refine their designs based on existing oil platforms.

                                                                  source: fastcoexist.com

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