The task given: Re-visit the good old raised pilot house motor yacht concept. 45m, a good size for a fast yacht.
It’s probably a planing or semi-planing hull. Tender garage aft, decent size engine room. 3 guest cabins in the centre of the lower deck (possibly 4, but let’s be generous and make one a VIP). Owner forward, ideally some sort of split level between main deck and lower deck, leaving enough space for the crew in front. The rest of the main deck would house the main salon, dining area. Galley and pantry to port side, access to the owner’s stateroom on star board. So far so good…
The challenge: Re-invent. Question everything. Go wild. Play with different surfaces, inside and outside. Re-think the complete structure to push the envelope.
The concepts: CURVE plays mainly with the de-construction of super structure surfaces. Rather than volumes, we build surface panels. Carbon finish. Smooth painted surfaces. Polished steel. Or maybe even mother-of-pearl? We play with gaps, shadows, reflection. A yacht that changes appearance depending on the light. CURVE remains intangible, the visual concept of motion.
ANGLE might look less wild, but we dig deep into our bag of tricks to make it happen. The key is a new definition of what’s inside and what’s outside, allowing us to be radical with the use of glass. We know that areas like beach clubs and forward observation lounges can be achieved by excluding these areas for our calculations for the flotation integrity. Practically, they become outside areas. And then we thought, why do these areas have to be either in the bow or in the stern? Why can’t they be in the middle? Well, it probably makes engineering a bit more of a challenge, but that’s what finite elements calculations are for, no?
CURVE and ANGLE are at this moment just two quick exercises, but despite their looks they are more science than fiction.