Released last week, the Aircruise from Seymourpowell is a concept design for a hydrogen-powered floating cruiser, destined for our skies in the next decade, apparently.

Getting straight to it, the diamond-shaped structure is 265m tall, weighs in at 270t ("the same as a A380 super jumbo"), which is offset by humungous hydrogen volumes, and invites on board a maximum of 100 passengers (20 of whom crew the Aircuise).  If I sound skeptical, I am.  This dubious accomplishment seems like an extraordinarily consuming one, but in the efforts of futurology, this project probably deserves some distribution.

Nick Talbot, design director of Seymoutpowell says of the project: "The Aircruise concept questions whether the future of luxury travel should be based around space-constrained, resource hungry, and all too often stressful airline travel. A more serene transport experience will appeal to people looking for a more reflective journey, where the experience of travel itself is more important than getting from A to B quickly."  A fair, and not exactly revolutionary argument, but I just fail to see how a floating (huge) building for a tiny and elite community is a productive societal creation.

The developed interior design of the Aircruise -paid for by Samsung- is fairly ridiculous, and feels completely impersonal and more attuned to Smurf sensibilities, but then, the potential clients of this thing must be of a similar fairly ridiculous ilk, so I'll leave them to cast their opinion.





You can check it out for yourself in Seymourpowell's pretty animation here, with more information ("technical data") in their press release here.