Futuristic gym boat would have exercisers sailing down the Seine

Why merely walk along the Seine when you could cycle/float along it from the comfort of a human-powered glass vessel? The Paris Navigating Gym conceived by Carlo Ratti Associati, Technogym, and Terreform ONE now joins a growing fleet of bonkers buoyant architecture proposals that includes Gensler’s floating Parliament and BIG’s floating shipping container dorms, just to name a few.

But this exercise-oriented creation is particularly intriguing since the concept appears to effectively trap gym-goers until they’ve exerted themselves enough to produce the energy required to push the boat to the next destination.

Roughly 65 feet long, the vessel would hold 45 fitness buffs working out on specially designed Technogym machines that generate electricity and feed it into the boat’s electrical system. Augmented-reality screens will display information about the Seine’s weather conditions and the amount of energy generated onboard.

“[I]t’s fascinating to see how the energy generated by a workout at the gym can actually help to propel a boat,” said designer and MIT Senseable City Lab director Carlo Ratti. “It provides one with a tangible experience of what lies behind the often abstract notion of electric power.”

Seeing how Ratti’s “Supermarket of the Future” concept also featuring augmented reality was just realized in Milan, Italy, it’s not entirely implausible this floating gym could one day also see the light of day.

Via: Designboom, Carlo Ratti Associati