ARCHITECT HOPES TO BUILD UNDERWATER TENNIS COURT!

Here’s a news story that award-winning architects in Manchester will no doubt find interesting – Polish architect Krzysztof Kotala has come up with the idea of constructing an underwater tennis court with a curved roof so players and spectators will be able to see fish swimming all around them during a match.

Keen to build it in Dubai, which is famed for pushing the boundaries of architecture, 30-year-old Mr Kotala said his design will be something totally original and should be built somewhere where a tradition of tennis-playing already exists – hence Dubai.

According to the Daily Mail, Mr Kotala is now looking for investors to turn this from a dream into a reality, although engineers have suggested that the idea would not only be very expensive to do but would also be especially difficult to execute.

Speaking to the news source, director of engineering and technical services at London’s Institution of Structural Engineers Sarah Fray said that the glass cover would need to be at least 108ft wide to fit the court and stands in.

“The more joints there are, the more likely it would leak. The design would also need to be thought out in terms of how it react to an impact. Any boat would have to be kept well clear and a dropped anchor would destroy it,” she said.

Mr Kotala isn’t the only one pushing architectural boundaries at the moment. Hungarian architect Dr Matyas Gutai recently hit the headlines with his concept of liquid engineering, where houses would feature walls with water trapped inside steel and glass panels to help reduce energy bills by up to 20 per cent.