Dubai appears to be quickly outpacing the West in its display of conspicuous consumption as the Versace fashion house announces plans for a refrigerated beach:
“The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface. The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach. The scheme is likely to infuriate environmentalists…However, Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace, said he believed it is possible to design a refrigerated beach and make it sustainable. ‘We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,' he said. ‘This is the kind of luxury that top people want.' Hyder Consulting, a British construction consultancy, is overseeing the engineering on the project. The hotel will be marketed strongly in the UK where Dubai is a popular tourist destination, attracting about 800,000 Britons a year.”
No thanks.
