Moved Permanently

A group of scientists, artists and environmentalists visited Surbiton to explain how their “drifting village” can be used to escape the effects of climate change. 

A prototype of the seagoing vessel, which the group call a “floating architecture”, will set sail from London to Rotterdam in July. Designer Ollie Palmer, who recently visited the Ravens Ait squat to speak about the Open Sailing project, is one of four principal team members who will be on the maiden voyage. He said: “It's a hard concept to explain to people who haven't seen the Open Sailing vessel, but our end goal is to have an ocean-based equivalent to the International Space Station. It seems ridiculous but we know less about the sea than we do about the moon.”

Open sailing will enable scientists to carry out research, using the open sailing structure as a floating lab. The vessel is made up of a series of pod-like shelters which are surrounded by 'farming units'. The farming units will be used to harvest food like fish and plants from the ocean so that the inhabitants of the pods can be self-sufficient.

The project is the brainchild of Royal College of Art Design Interactions student Cesar Herada, and the vessel is currently being built at the Area 10 gallery space in Peckham. Palmer and the other team members taking part in the London-Rotterdam journey have been undergoing rigorous military safety and sailing training in France in preparation for the voyage. Palmer said that the group are “confident about the design” but nervous nonetheless. He said: “We are anticipating that it won't work without problems, but it's always fabulous to see a project coming together and it'll be good to see how the different units of the team come together because we all have such different technical backgrounds.” 

The group's intention is for others to contribute and add their expertise to the project, in the same way that open source software is developed. Palmer said : “We don’t want to be recognized as a finished closed entity but rather as a contributing group of people. This has been done for many years with software but is a new concept in terms of architecture.” 

The project has attracted international attention and the group eventually hope to travel from Morocco to Venezuela with the vessel, after they have ironed out any problems that arise during the three-week journey to Rotterdam. Palmer said: “Some people have been sceptical about open sailing. Some think we're mad and others think it's just a nice art project so it'll be good to prove them wrong.” 

A spokesman for the RCA revealed that the open sailing will be on display to the public at the college from June 25.