Earlier this month, Italian architect Piero Lissoni took home the top prize in a competition to design an aquarium positioned on the waterfront in Queens, New York. Lissoni took the commission one step further: planning to install the aquarium not on the waterfront, but in the water itself. He conceived Aquatrium, as the project is called, as an elongated basin that stretches into the East River. A walkway around its perimeter would guide visitors around the expanded waterfront. At the far end, a terraced plaza would extend two stories below the water level, making visitors feel as if they were venturing beneath the East River currents. Within this sunken plaza, transparent orbs would house and display different aquatic species—as if they were bubbling up from the river below. As Lissoni put it, “The main idea is to generate an environment whereby visitors feel that they themselves are entering the water to discover the beauty of the marine life on display.”
The competition, which drew 178 proposals from 40 countries, was administered by Arch Out Loud, an organization that aims to give architects a platform to investigate pressing, but unconventional, ideas. Its next contest, to launch this June, will ask architects to design a vertical cemetery for Tokyo.
Transparent bubbles would display various ecosystems.
The eight-person jury, chaired by architect Anna Pietrzak, cited the winning entry’s potential for creating an experiential immersiveness, saying, “being underwater is often compared to being in outer space, and this entry embodies such other-worldly qualities.” At this point, there is no indication as to when Lissoni’s aquarium could be built.
