Regardless of how inhospitable the ocean might appear, South Africa is home to a very unique ecosystem generated by the flow of these two massive water bodies meeting and mixing right below Cape Town. The mix of cold and hot waters bring together many animal species which otherwise would rarely inhabit the same areas. Some of these are looking for a safe place in which they can breed, others simply for a rock to sunbathe and to feed.

In the same way that the windsurfers are not originally from cape town, many of the animal species also aren’t, such as penguins who are not native of Africa but rather colder places such as Antartica, so it is easy to imagine how if an Iceberg were to be taken into one of the currents below south Africa and brought closer to the coast it would be inhabited by animals such as penguins, because of its status of floating micro ecosystem, as a safe island to live on.
Hence the idea to design a floating island to serve as an artificial micro ecosystem for surfers and animals to coexist in, using technology to enhance the tribe and communication within the surrounding environment of the building.

The Life Buoy, on water level is designed in such a way to have a series of plug in elements around its circumference, designed to work as a universal adapter that can allow users to fabricate different types of attachments that will serve different purposes ranging from the Seal Sun Deck to give the seals a floating ‘rock’ on which they can sunbathe and relax, to more technical attachments like the water purifier with its attached floating water tank.

Looking more closely at how the island and its users affect the immediate environment, there would be this new concentrated set of smells and noises carried away by the current, sensed by the animals in the area, but as J.Griffiths puts it, it doesn’t end here:

“You have a sense, underwater, of diffused mind, our heads are immersed, we are connected far more directly and intimately to everything else. Dolphins ‘know’ the minds of people underwater. They recognise depression and seem to feel for its victims.” Griffiths, J. Wild, p200

In a similar way, sharks can sense muscles moving and feel very light electromagnetic fields emitted by prey.

The inverse aquarium brings back to life ideas which began in the 1930’s with the Bathysphere, a deep sea submergible, who’s aim was to bring the underwater world to the public consciousness.

Similarly to the animals in the water, the island is connected through a vast network of electromagnetic waves invisible to the eye, which on a virtual level would be represented by the radar network that senses any moving objects and sends the signal to the control tower in order to communicate the location to the drone so it can film and send live video feed into the structure.
To then communicate with other establishments such as boats or the mainland, the global satellite network is used to communicate and connect all of the structures together through this existing network.

The micro networks created by the different levels of communication set the grounds for people to more easily access the underwater world directly through the structure, which is part of a large virtual network continuously growing its information bank and educating the people about the sea but also allowing animals to interact with them in a safer environment.

Looking at the context, the Island has a specific habitable zone and throughout the course of the year moves from one location to the other and with this the program transforms and the Island changes to suit the needs of the users, creating micro safe network in its surrounding area.

The island, which works as a platform for communication through different devices ties into SA traditional culture, where colours and patterns are used to communicate emotions and messages through their jewellery and beadwork, resulting in a technological piece of jewellery made out of 5 panels composed by a newly designed triangle, which works as an extension of the sleeve in the neoprene wetsuit the surfer wears, for a facilitated visual communication creating a hyperconnected space within the network of surfers using it to alert of any dangers or other information.