Marine Environmental Restoration: Female Scientist Wins Excellence Award

Petráková has 'beyond outdated concepts' in design by creating a unique architecture that both helps reduce ocean pollution and helps spread awareness against water pollution to visitors.

The work of Slovak female designer Lenka Petráková was awarded the '2020 Grand Prix Award' not only in recognition of the 'quality and ideas' of the design, but also to honor the 'goal of cleaning up the marine environment. , a difficult but urgent problem that humanity has to deal with'.

Green building

According to estimates by environmentalists, every year, millions of tons of waste of all kinds, from inorganic to organic and toxic substances are introduced into sea water.

Floating station collects and treats waste at sea.

Some float, some sink or dissolve. Petráková emphasized in the acceptance statement: 'I hope the floating station cleaning the sea will contribute to restoring the balance of the marine environment, by collecting floating plastic waste and turning it into recycled materials. used at the on-site recycling plant".

Petráková envisioned a revolutionary innovative model of a floating research station that uses energy generated by tides, wind and sunlight to clean the oceans. The female designer started the project as a graduate thesis from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the design was done at the university's design studio Hani Rashid Studio.

The Grand Prix Award is a prestigious award to recognize impressive contributions to architecture. The design also won the Foundation Jacques Rougerie Foundation's Innovation of the Sea Award for 'visionary innovation' .

In the award announcement video, the association considers the floating station as a 'self-sufficient organism' capable of using natural resources to move and restore balance to the ocean, and clean the environment. .

Petrákov's work features three petal-like floating chambers linked to a central 'greenhouses' consisting of 3 glass 'flames' that bend towards the sky, looking like 3 giant lotus petals rising to the surface. sea.

The three main floating compartments are giant hoses that block and suck garbage from the ocean (Barrier) to bring it to the central treatment plant (Collector). Another special feature of the floating station is its ability to be self-sufficient by converting tidal energy into electricity.

Scientist Lenka Petrákova.

Petráková said that the station has a room for analysis of marine flora and fauna, and a salt water filter tank for domestic use and farming on the station. Food self-sufficiency is very good. In general, each part of the station has its own and complementary tasks.

For example, turning sea water into fresh water is not only to get water for irrigation of hydroponic gardens, but also to research and perfect the desalination technique so that it is less expensive and of the best quality. The green house has a curved shape to take advantage of the push of the wind. Common spaces, private spaces and ancillary facilities are also interconnected.

Interesting idea

Covering the 'green houses' are solar panels that provide electricity for water heating. Clean water treated from garbage water will be filtered before being pumped into the water tank for desalination or for other uses' - Petrov confided: 'We can't imagine a day when the world is no longer green. positive but only dark and gloomy. Currently, the ocean surface is so dirty that it is alarmingly red.

Life forms and plants are suffering from the terrible ravages of man. Helping to restore the ocean's marine life is urgent. Creating a positive change in the relationship between people and the ocean in future generations is also urgent.

According to the designers, Petráková has 'beyond outdated concepts' in design when determined to create a unique architecture that can both help reduce ocean pollution and help spread anti-pollution knowledge. water environment for tourists to visit the floating station.

The work was awarded the '2020 Grand Prix Award'.

The design is called 'The 8th Continent', which considers the huge waste population in the Pacific Ocean as 'the 8th continent' . Petráková confided to the press: 'For me, the amount of garbage that is drifting in the Pacific and other oceans is so large that it has to be called the right name if it is collected as a mass. Our species is facing the predictable dangers of… the mobile garbage continent.

It affects organisms from what they ingest and then passes on to humans. That's what led me to the idea of ​​designing a floating structure that could collect trash floating in the oceans; for example plastic bags, plastic bottles to process them into reusable materials'.

The floating station is directly connected to centers for receiving recycled materials and schools that have educational programs for students and visitors about the need for humanity to take immediate action to not pollute the ocean more. and find solutions to deal with potential risks soon.

To be clear, we can't hurt the ocean any further if we want to maintain it as a healthy environment that feeds people and the lifeblood of traffic between countries.