Yves Béhar Just Floated Plans for an Underwater Space Station, and It’s Wild

Global challenges like climate change and food sustainability have driven career aquanaut and third-generation ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau to the depths looking for answers. Now, he’s partnered with designer Yves Béhar of fuseproject for his—and possibly Béhar’s—most ambitious project to date.

Commissioned by the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, PROTEUS is an underwater research facility that, like the International Space Station, will serve as a platform for global collaboration. From 60 feet below the Caribbean Sea, off the island of Curaçao, teams of up to 12 will be able to conduct prolonged research while comfortably immersed in planet Earth’s final frontier.

"The intent is to offer an effective, comfortable, and attractive destination for researchers," states Béhar, "and an exciting underwater structure that garners the same passion for ocean exploration as we have for space exploration."

In a 2014 mission, Cousteau produced three years’ worth of valuable research in just 31 days by living in an underwater lab the size of a school bus. Acclimating to the depths allowed for much longer SCUBA dives, and more fruitful work. To encourage more of the same, he and Béhar took a holistic approach to the design of the new research center.

The roomy station is designed to span 4,000 square feet—four times the size of any known underwater habitat. The structure is set on adjustable stilts, and modular pods fixed to the exterior will hold state-of-the-art laboratories, bathrooms, sleeping quarters, medical bays, life support systems, or storage rooms. A moon-shaped pool allows for submersibles to dock as needed.

The design promotes well-being and provides many of the comforts of home—an improvement on "most facilities of this nature," which Béhar says typically forego a sense of home in favor of cold utility. The station’s spiraling shape encourages physical activity as researchers and visitors move through the living, cooking, dining, and work areas. Each is arranged to promote social interaction—isolation can be an issue when relegated to the depths—and circular windows dot the ceiling and facades to provide as much natural light as possible.