FYI,

"Dome, Sand and Sea"
The Guardian (UK)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1377997,00.html

: Outside the snow is blowing sideways, but inside there's a
: rainforest, a Balinese lagoon and people in swimsuits. This is
: Tropical Islands, a huge covered resort brought to eastern Germany
: courtesy of a Malaysian entrepreneur and a failed plan to transport
: freight in zeppelins. Could it be the first of many?

: From a distance you can't tell what it is, or what it was; this
: stretched dome, this oblong bubble squatting on the flat, spare
: landscape of a disused Russian military airbase, deep in the birch
: and pine forests of the former GDR, just over an hour's drive from
: Berlin. You can't even guess at its true scale until you get close
: enough to see the tiny cars parked along its edge.

: Here's what it is: a tropical island paradise, with white sandy
: beaches, waterfalls tumbling into tranquil lagoons, a rainforest,
: several restaurants, shops and all manner of entertainments,
: protected from the freezing Brandenburg winter by the world's
: largest self-supporting hall. Raw numbers aren't much help with
: something this size, but for the record it's 360m long, 210m wide
: and 107m high in the middle, enclosing a total interior space of
: 5 million metres cubed. You could slide the Eiffel Tower in on its
: side, or, if you prefer, the Statue of Liberty standing up. It's
: twice as high as the Millennium Dome, and covers a comparable area
: of ground.

: Could this be the future of tourism - sun-kissed leisure without
: the trouble or expense of travel? Simply recreate the climate and
: approximate the culture of a popular travel destination at home,
: then build an enormous car park next to it. We've never had to
: consider anything quite so utopian - or dystopian - because it's
: never been practically possible on such a scale. The Centre Parcs
: bubble is a toy compared to it. If this project is successful there
: are plans to build more tropical paradises in Europe. Could our own
: Millennium Dome qualify? Could Bali-on-Thames be a reality?

: The idea for this roofed-over resort, called simply Tropical
: Islands (apparently the German equivalent doesn't sound sehr gut ),
: came from Malaysian entrepreneur Colin Au. On a visit to Germany,
: where he happened to be getting four ocean liners built, he noticed
: that the weather tended toward the foul. He dreamed of bringing the
: tropics to the Germans, and parking it a convenient distance from
: Berlin, not far from the main road to Dresden. In Brandenburg did
: Colin Au his stately pleasure dome decree.

: Except, luckily, the dome was already here. It was built in 1997 as
: a zeppelin hangar by a German company called CargoLifter, which had
: its own dream of building giant dirigibles capable of floating
: freight around the globe. This dream went bust in 2002, leaving
: only debts of €120m (£82m), and a big empty shell. It was one of
: many grand ventures which have failed to resuscitate the region's
: moribund economy. Unemployment here is approaching 20%, and
: recovery has so far proved elusive. A Malaysian consortium fronted
: by Au bought the building for about £20m, a quarter of what it cost
: to build. A further £50m has been spent transforming it into a
: tropical holiday destination, and on the power plant designed to
: keep the place a balmy 25-28 degrees year round.

: The scale of the operation puts one in mind of Willy Wonka's
: chocolate factory, or a Martian colony, or other things that don't
: exist in real life. They have trucked in 30,000m cubed of soil and
: 500 plant species for their rainforest. The speakers which
: broadcast insect noises are shaped like rocks. And the building
: itself, it goes without saying, is extraordinary, the biggest
: inside of anything you will ever see. It makes your head spin. This
: place doesn't just have a climate. It has weather. As the place
: fills up, the extra moisture in the air condenses on the roof. It
: starts to rain a little bit.

: Along the tiered banks of tables running down to the beach, the
: great and the good of Brandenburg, ambassadors from several
: Southeast Asian nations, regional politicians, local hoteliers and
: German journalists - perhaps two thousand people in all - sip at
: pina coladas and look around with a combination of wonder and
: apprehension. Everyone wants this place to work, but to many it
: seems, if anything, slighter madder than the idea of a giant
: zeppelin factory.

: Colin Au takes steps onto the sand, takes the microphone and
: launches into a speech, in English punctuated by a running
: translation, in which he makes a point of distinguishing between
: the "hardware" of Tropical Islands (beaches, lagoon, rainforest,
: restaurants) and the "software" (service and hospitality). "People
: tell me it's hard to get Germans to smile," he says. "Well, we have
: taught our staff to smile."

: Tropical Islands officially opens for business at 6am the following
: morning, thence to remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week
: every day of the year. We've heard they are expecting more than
: 10,000 people on the first day, far more than their maximum
: capacity of 7,000.

: What does he think about Au's all-important "software", the good
: service and hospitality allegedly as exotic an import to these
: parts as the rainforest orchids? "They are all very friendly," he
: says. "It's unusual for Brandenburg because Brandenburgers are
: stubborn. I think they've had orders."

: On first sight this place is as bewildering as it is fascinating.
: The acoustics are weird - laughter and applause don't carry very
: far in the vast space, but a banging hammer can be heard everywhere.

: He says this is a subject on which consensus is rarely reached:
: some people will always think it should be warmer, some want it
: cooler. For this reason they make the lagoon warmer than the sea.
: "We keep the sea cooler for people who want to do laps." But the
: air, you could make it warmer if you wanted? "Oh yes," he says. "Of
: course." You can do that too.

Mark Reiff

--- In space-architecture@yahoogroups.com, "Mark Reiff"
<markreiff@y...> wrote:
>
> FYI,
>
> A prototype of how space tourist resorts and settlements may be
> constructed.
>
> Tropical Islands
> http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/engl/index.htm