Building That Grows a Salt Skin



Faulders Studio has designed a building called GEOtube that, if built in Dubai, would develop its own outer surface from salt! The building plans include a lattice of pipes on the outside, which would grow solid from salt deposits over 15-30 years.
The GEOtube building is covered in a vascular pipe system following a grid of structural lattice and is situated in a salt-water pond, carried to the building from the adjacent Persian Gulf via an underground viaduct. Utilizing floating solar panels for power, the seawater is pumped from basement level to the rooftop and is then gravity-fed through the vascular system.

The lace-like skin forms once the seawater, misted onto its exposed mesh, evaporates and leaves a layer of salt behind. Because the Persian Gulf has the world’s highest salinity for oceanic water, the salt deposits accumulate quickly, making the transparent skin take on a new crystalline appearance.

Once the building is covered, salt could be harvested for other uses. Of course, this project is just a concept for now. Link

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This concept is amazing. There is a hell of a lot of ridiculous, over-the-top, tacky stuff going on in Dubai, however a building using this 'salt-growing' skin would be fascinating.
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