The vision

Suspended in the time and space of another world,

our perspective is inverted as we look up instead of down at the surface of the sea.

Our terrestrial lives are far away on the other side of the interface, and time stretches out before us. In that new space, the assumptions and expectations of the familiar dissolve, distractions are removed, and a vibrant presence causes our imagination to expand, our observation to deepen, and our sense of connectedness to ourselves, each other, and other life to spread and myelinate.

Prism is an underwater sanctuary, embedded in a coral reef,

which gives its inhabitants the first person experience of living underwater.

It is a looking glass, a resolved world made visible to us by a magical lens that transforms a realm usually blurred by water into a place we can sense, feel, and know. We go into that space together. We live together there at the edge of comprehension, in one of the most remote corners of possibility for humans, and share our wonder at the unthinkable beauty of it. Through the refraction, we coauthor our excitements and discoveries, and together we create ideas, meaning, and purpose - new human culture incubated by the reef.

The space will hold gatherings of people in one of the largest underwater observatories that has existed,

and will be gorgeously and meticulously crafted by artists and engineers.

Prism is the first habitat of sea or space that has emphasized communing with our living planet over technical objectives. In this moment when our relationship to Earth is at its most precarious, revealing our place in the whole context of interdependent life in the psphere is a transcendental experience.

Other Habitats

Prism’s cultural lineage can be traced back to the early 1960s, when Jacques Cousteau and his team built Conshelf I off the coast of Marseilles at 10m of depth, then later Conshelf II in the Red Sea and Conshelf III in the Mediterranean.

The underwater habitats since Cousteau were designed primarily for work, and they were kept at ambient pressure to enable divers to have extended bottom time for scientific and engineering activities underwater.

As a result, they have tended to be crowded, uncomfortable, and utilitarian. Since the 1960s, over sixty-five underwater habitats have been built, but only two are still in operation—the Aquarius research lab and the Jules Verne Lodge, both located in Florida. These two habitats are single-purpose spaces that are small and industrial, with a very different sensibility from that of PRISM.

There are also a number of restaurants and hotels scattered around the world that feature underwater rooms, but as their buildings are contiguous with the surface, they are not considered habitats and are not designed for more than brief visits.