A house with a view to the fish

An Italian yacht company promises to produce residences that will float on the surface of the ocean and function as environmental homes that satisfy all the needs of their residents. Does their idea hold water?
By Ilya Brebner, Angle - news agency for science and the environment

While we complain about housing prices and environmental scientists warn against population density and overexploitation of our land and other natural resources, a group of scientists and designers from Italy presented a plan to create floating residences that would be able to sail across the ocean and meet all the needs of their residents using renewable energy. According to the plan, these houses will purify seawater and rainwater, will move with the help of solar radiation and it will be possible to grow vegetables on them. Is this a revolutionary idea that will change the way we think about living, or nothing more than a yacht company marketing gimmick?
The Italian yacht manufacturer Jet Capsule recently presented its plan to create the UFO houses. It is not a flying saucer from Mars, but an "Unidentified Floating Object" - an unidentified floating object. According to the plans, the living unit will be able to move through water at a speed of 6.5 kilometers per hour with the help of an electric water motor. Admittedly, this is not a dizzying speed, but considering the fact that this is a unit intended for living and not for cruising, 6.5 km/h is still 6.5 km/h more than your current house can move.

The unit's motor collects energy from 40 square meters of solar panels, which are located on the unit's roof, which can be closed to protect it during a storm. Also, water and wind turbines can be added to the unit, which will provide energy for the rest of the house's needs and will be able to drive it on cloudy days. Drinking water will be supplied to the floating house by a solar water purification system, which will also be able to collect and treat rainwater. The food will be provided by special growing surfaces surrounding the unit, although the company's developers, Pier-Paolo Larazini and Luca Sola, have not provided a sufficient explanation for the question of how these vegetable gardens will hold up during a storm.

Another element that Jet Capsule promises to integrate in the lower part of its housing unit, next to a bedroom and a bathroom, is a wide underwater viewing window, through which you can watch the ocean fish like in your own private underwater observatory.

Currently, this is only a plan, which has not been tested in sea conditions (the biggest problem of all such houses is of course the question of the survival of the unit in the harsh weather conditions of the ocean. The company claims that the unit "cannot sink", this is thanks to a special anchor system, but no details were provided real technical).

The pictures and the idea certainly certainly look promising, but we would cool our enthusiasm until we see such a house floating safely on the surface of the water. Meanwhile, the company is looking for investors to build a functioning prototype, whose production cost is estimated at $800. At a later stage, the company hopes to lower the production costs to about 200 dollars, for a two-story residential unit. I wonder what Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon thinks about this.