London, August 14 (ANI): Maldives is planning to build a radical 320 million-pound floating golf course, which players could access by an undersea tunnel.
The course is part of a major plan to replace the sinking islands with a network of man made, floating islands.
With an average elevation of just five feet above the sea level, the Maldives, with its 1,192 islands in the Indian Ocean, is the lowest country in the world.
Amid fears that many of their islands will soon sink into the sea, the Maldivian government has started a joint venture with the architectural firm Dutch Docklands International to build the world's largest series of artificial floating-islands.
The Dutch firm has already built floating islands for prisons and housings from concrete slabs and polystyrene foam.
In the Maldives, the floating islands will be anchored to the seabed using cables or telescopic mooring piles, making landforms that will be stable even in storms.
The architects chose this approach to minimise damage to the seabed, and also chose to build lots of small islands to reduce the shadow on the seabed, which could affect marine life.
The islands will also be designed for swimmers, divers and even private submarines to enter them from below, and the Dutch firm designing the scheme has said that the visitors will be able to rent private submarines, that could surface right in the middle of their living rooms.
The idea is the brainchild of Dutch firm Waterstudio that designed the project and is being engineered by floating architecture specialists Dutch Docklands.
"We told the president of the Maldives we can transform you from climate refugees to climate innovators," the Daily Mail quoted Dutch Docklands CEO Paul van de Camp, as saying.
"And we have a way of building and sustaining this project that is environmentally friendly too.
"This is going to be an exclusively green development in a marine-protected area," he said.
The first part of the project to be built will be the golf course.
"This will be the first and only floating golf course in the world - and it comes complete with spectacular ocean views on every hole.
"And then there's the clubhouse. You get in an elevator and go underwater to get to it. It's like being Captain Nemo down there," van de Camp said.
The islands will be constructed in India or the Middle east to reduce costs, then simply towed to their final destination in the Maldives.
"We'll be building the islands somewhere else, probably in the Middle East or in India - that way there's no environmental cost to the Maldives," Designer Koen Olthuis said.
"When it comes to the golf course, the islands will be floated into position first and then the grass will be seeded and the trees planted afterwards," he said.
Development on the golf course is expected to begin later this year, and should be ready for play by the end of 2013 ahead of the full launch in 2015.
The proposed site will just be a five-minute speedboat ride from the capital of Male, giving golfers the chance to make quick journeys to the mainland.
Amazingly, the course will be powered by solar energy which is a resource the Maldives has plenty of, as the Island nation is located just north of the equator.
The designers have claimed that the entire resort will be carbon neutral.
The ambitious plans will also feature 43 private islands called Amillarah (the Maldivian word for Private Island) in a archipelago configuration.
Each has its own jetty for yachts, along with a pool. Palm trees give each mini island its own secluded area. (ANI)
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