A new hotel design features breeding tanks full of fish and vegetable-filled vertical farms — take a look

Aquaponic hotel design

The annual Radical Innovation Award competition always features elaborate and imaginative hotel designs, including water-powered resorts on mountaintops and rooms in flying glass pods.

This year, the runner-up created a hotel design centered on aquaponics — a system that combines raising fish and cultivating plants in water. Excretions from the fish can increase the toxicity of the water, but this water is fed to the plant system, where bacteria turn the by-products intro nutrients for the plants. The water is purified by the time it returns to the aquatic system at the end of the closed cycle.

Varinot & Varinot Architectes, a firm based in France, wants to apply this closed loop model to hotels by recycling rainwater throughout the building. The circulation would provide water to aquariums, flowers, and vertical produce farms within the hotel.

Radical Innovation Award winners were announced on October 3, with a driverless travel suite design winning the top prize. The suite, which could be ordered online or through a mobile app, would feature basic amenities for sleeping and using the restroom.

Take a look at some of the renderings for the top two hotels.