KARACHI: The Blue Planet Aquarium opened this weekend in the capital of Denmark over the weekend, allegedly taking the title of Northern Europe’s largest aquarium. Located 8 kms from Copenhagen in Oresund, it contains about 7 million liters of water, 20,000 fish and 53 aquariums in all.
Inhabitants of the aquarium include sharks, seals, small crocs, eels, barracudas and many small colorful fish native to coral reefs such as the ones shown in Disney’s Oscar-winning “Finding Nemo.” The largest dwellers of the place are 10-13 feet long hammerhead sharks.
To make the Blue Planet Aquarium feel as much like home as possible, actual seawater is fed to the tanks through a 1.7 km long tube. For hygiene’s sake, all the tanks are filtered and disinfected every hour before being recycled. Ocean Tank is the largest aquarium of the complex, 52 feet long and 26 feet high. The four million liters of water it contains are encased in Acrylic glazing rather than glass, since the former is 10 to 20 times stronger.
3D modeling was the dominant methodology used to design the interior. The main lobby lies under a glass-bottomed pool, giving visitors the overwhelming feeling of being underwater. The Round Room connects all the others together. There is also a restaurant facing the sea, featuring…what else…sea food.
The walls and stairs of the complex mirror the marine theme, with their curved structure and scale-like aluminum shingles highly reminiscent of pristine sea-shells reflecting the sky.
The whirlpool-shaped Blue Planet Aquarium was constructed by Danish architectural team 3XN, which earned the job 6 years ago through an international competition.
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