Tino Schaedler, co-writer of Towards a Cineplastic Architecture, published in the latest MARK Magazine and made available in its entirety at ArTect.net earlier this month, has updated his website with a new project for NAU, Strato Cruiser.
An Art Director for Digital Sets, Tino has worked on films including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, V for Vendetta, Catwoman and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Strato Cruiser is his latest collaboration with fellow Studio Digital Analog co-founder, Michael Brown.
Since the ’90’s rigid airships have begun to make a comeback as scenic transport and surveying aircraft with future potential as cargo carriers. The Strato Cruiser is an intriguing new zeppelin design, bearing resemblance to a whale with angled facets and an ingenious “doughnut concept” that replaces the traditional gondola.
Concept
“Merging the soothing ride of an ocean cruise with Richard Branson’s futuristic visions of space travel, the Stratocruiser offers short, regenerative journeys for the cosmopolitan traveler. The project aims to bring lifestyle and health into travel routines, which have become increasingly compacted and frenzied. Like modern nomads we can again enjoy travel, arriving more refreshed than we left, thanks to incredible views of the world’s most exciting landscapes and cities.”
Experience
“As a fictional partnership with the SupperClub, Stratocruiser adds a new experience to the chain’s clubs, restaurants, ‘On location’ and ‘Cruise’ boats. Guests depart for a full day of spa treatments-massage, personal trainers, yoga classes and beauty care are on offer. The Stratocruiser offers “medium-haul” transits between the Supperclub hubs: transatlantic, transpacific, trans-american or Europe-Middle East routes. With spa, library, and private mini-offices available, the contemporary traveler who seldom has time for a cruise can transform an otherwise exhausting and ordinary journeys into a positive experience.
As the zeppelin approaches its lookout destination at sunset, travelers then sit down to a healthy gourmet dinner overlooking glaciers, tropical jungles or Mayan ruins. New locations and star chefs are rotated weekly to ensure that no experience is the same. As one would expect from the SupperClub, guest DJs inject a club flare after dinner with the option to party the night through or retire to ones private cabin to awake refreshed in the morning at ones origin.”
Structure
“With its carbon fiber skin, sectional helium chamber design and photovoltaic cells, the Stratocruiser’s construction brings new levels of safety, speed and ecology to travel. Its “doughnut hole” atrium reinvents the zeppelin concept with a sky lounge on top, the earthward viewing restaurant on the underside and a recreational climbing wall in between. Private suites are sheltered away from public spaces on the ships belly, while an advanced propulsion system more than doubles the cruising speed of conventional blimps.”