Darfur has long been plagued by significant droughts, however in 2007 scientists at Boston University discovered the region has one of the biggest underwater lakes in the world. Putting these two facts together, Polish firm H3AR designed an incredible water-harvesting skyscraper that would draw h2o from underground and create an artificial lake!
Darfur’s underground lake covers a distance of 19,110 square miles and has the potential to restore peace to a region ravaged by drought, however providing access to all that water has proven difficult. H3AR‘s Watertower aims to tap this resource through good design and effective water management. The skyscraper would work as a hospital, a school, a food storage center, and most importantly, a water storage center.
…and all H3AR needs is a rich western government to underwrite their solution in search of a problem. The cost to benefit ratio for this project is unsustainable. And inhabitat knows this – we’ve seen this design on the blogs in other contexts. A better solution for every money spent would be providing standard deep wells to supplement individual family cisterns, and low water use gardening technologies.
It’s an interesting design, but how many people will it help on a daily basis and what is the cost per person effected? If it’s more than a hundred dollars per individual, I doubt that it’s cost-effective.
I believe you mean underground lakes instead of “underwater lakes” Very interesting article.
If they were made out of bricks what would hold the water within the building? It would need to be reinforced with steal I would imagine. That much water pressure, depending on the volume of water would put a lot of stress on those bricks.
Seems like a neat idea – but the guy above might be right. Well’s might be more realistic. I know nothing about the area though.
Id like to know more about the project.