Exactly twenty-five years ago I was asked if I could be able to build a small series of artificial reefs made of steel and concrete for the fantastic hotel “Club Cozumel Caribe”, in the paradisiacal waters of the island of Cozumel in the Mexican Caribbean.
Like every new art and design challenge that has appeared in my professional career and regardless of its technical complexity, my answer was once again affirmative, despite not really having any idea where I was going, the only idea of being able to build a structure A submarine that served as a refuge for life at the bottom of the sea was simply fascinating.
In a few days I learned to weld, slag and go over each weld chain, and with galvanized tube of an inch and a half I built the bases and vertical reinforcements that would support the rest of the structure made with very basic hydrodynamic shapes in its design. Subsequently, the external form was completed with three types of metal networks of different steels and wefts that later allowed the application of hand-stamped cement as a coating and final finish.
The final weight of each of these three large structures was between approximately 800 and 1,300 kilos. It quickly became apparent that this type of construction has serious drawbacks. The first is the excessive final weight due to the materials used, which greatly hinders the construction itself and especially its movement and installation on the seabed. The hotel had at that time the largest technical ship on the island, which was vital to achieve the objective, without it, this installation would have been laboriously complex. Despite the fact that the meteorology during those days accompanied the immersion of the artificial reefs, the logistics were complex and not very precise when it came to depositing them on the predetermined seabed, mainly due to the strong current that exists in that specific area of the island.
By that time the power of the global internet was dizzyingly beginning and thanks to it, the work at the New York School of Fine Arts was echoed and a group of a dozen students and two teachers decided to continue with the initial project. I shared with them the technique that I had used along with the problems that I had to face and a total of thirty more works were carried out, that although the sizes were notably smaller to facilitate their logistics, the final artistic result was simply fantastic. Different and very personal designs in shapes and textures made the final result of the entire project something unique and pioneering at that time that filled all of us with pride and set a precedent in the construction of underwater sculptures and artificial reefs at that time.
Unfortunately, the island of Cozumel is in one of the historical corridors of the Caribbean Sea where the greatest number of hurricanes occur each year and is generally of high intensity.
Just a few months after the complete installation of all the sculptures, a hurricane force 5 (scale of maximum level of destruction) completely erased all the works, I remember that the only thing we could find was just a fragment of one square foot of some of the sculptures, despite the fact that most of the works were submerged at a depth of between 30 and 40 feet, this was the only physical vestige of the project that survived.
About five years after this project, another businessman and, like the previous one, also an esteemed friend who placed all their trust in me and work, asked me to do another underwater job again for their tourist facilities in front of the sea, from Again I took the challenge, but this time I decided to radically change the way of construction and especially the selection of new materials to use.
Given that I needed more options and freedom when creating bolder and more artistic shapes and volumes away from the rigor of cement and its application, I discovered that fiberglass gave me many more creative possibilities when molding, solidifying, giving textures and colors at work, and not only that, but also its light weight makes the use of a boat and its crew completely unnecessary when transporting, installing and reconfiguring it on the seabed, not to mention the notable decrease in costs when chartering a technical vessel and all its personnel for this operation. Another very important point of this material is its environmentally friendly condition, since fiberglass once solidified is simply that, glass; one of the best and most ecological materials in combination with the sea and used for the construction of the vast majority of marine vessels. Artistically it also has the advantage of being able to be translucent to have options to artificially illuminate its entire structure from within, in addition to its extraordinary hardness and flexibility.
To the enumeration of these advantages is added the most important and main reason for their choice, given that their transportation and installation is logistically simpler than cement and concrete, when a powerful hurricane arrives it will be possible to dismantle it, keep it in a safe place on the surface and when the meteor has passed, reinstall it in its original place.
The system really worked, and despite the fact that in the first prototypes it could be somewhat complicated in its reinstallation, mainly due to some small deformation in the metal structure that is anchored to the seabed and gives the hydrodynamic resistance and stability to the rest of the structure. due to its light weight, that first prototype tube that would finally be brought to the surface during more than fifteen years of life and reinstalled on more than a dozen occasions, thus saving the underwater habitat and the economic investment made, If the first job had not been so, it would have been completely destroyed with the first hurricane, since with one of them and forces 5 everything that is submerged less than 50 feet deep practically disappears completely, including all kinds of growth organic and natural ecosystems in that depth range.
The fish and creatures that generally inhabit it sense beforehand the arrival of a powerful hurricane, all underwater life recognizes it and wisely submerge until it no longer represents a serious danger, they take refuge more deeply among the natural reefs, for later and in the following days return to the same area and find in the same place the habitat that protected them from predators and current, and that in addition to shelter provided food for the ease with which microorganisms and sponges adhere to the surface by the ecological materials used . This was the first time that a journalist called this type of work and reinstallation “an authentic oasis of life in underwater sculptures”.
The use of this innovative technology and application of new materials brought with it a new system much more flexible when it comes to creations that are structurally much more complex, resistant, and from the point of view of industrial and artistic design, find no limitations other than my own. imagination.
Aquabitat had just been born.
