At the moment decommissioned oil tankers are scrapped in ship graveyards in developing countries and it is here that workers have to take the ships apart by hand and this is a task that isn’t without danger. The workers have to deal with toxic chemicals and oil that has been left behind and all they get from it is salvaging metal that is sold for scrap for a pittance of profit.
Now the shipping industry and the Government is trying to put an end to this but this leaves us with the issue of what to do with the oil tankers when they are decommissioned. A team of Dutch designers, Sander Bakker, Chriss Collaris, Rubern Esser and Patrick can der Gronde think they have the answer with a project named Black Gold as they want to re-purpose the vessels.
At the moment the project is only a concept as the team have been talking about taking a vessel that has been abandoned and then reusing it as a public building. The designers talked about how oil tankers are becoming irrelevant thanks to changes in the transportation system. The designers want to take the internal structure of the tanker out and replace it with floor-plates. As the tankers have big beds it wouldn’t be difficult to make an ad hoc structure in the big shell. An open rectangle would be cut in the sides and this would allow air glow along with styling on the interior that would be similar to that of an airplane hanger and there would be free passage of wind and sun.
They plan on ensuring that the entrance would be connected to the coast with a pedestrian walkway, while the top of the vessel could be used for farming and inside there could be a commercial plaza or sculpture garden. The team propose a cultural centre in a country in the Persian Gulf as this is where the majority of the oil comes from.
