Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.
If you've never given much thought to all the cool things you could do with an abandoned silo, well…you didn't grow up in Kansas, did you? Personally, I had a great plan for a scuba-through aquarium (with whales!) that really could have gotten off the ground if someone had ponied up the seed money back when I was 5.
With a recent architectural design contest to revamp a couple of former sewage treatment plan silos into cultural landmarks, the Amsterdam City Council seems to be going for something a bit more practical than my old grain silo dreams. The ArchiCentral blog has some great renderings of the entry by NL Architects, which includes a "Cultural Silo" (with theaters, gallery space, and a restaurant), and a "Climbing Silo" (with a 40-meter/131-foot-high artificial cave for rock-wall climbing enthusiasts…of which, apparently, Amsterdam has many).
BTW: The headline here, a quote from the NL Architects spokesman, roughly translates from architect-speak into English as, "This project is going to be kick-ass!"
What would you do with a retired silo? I still think the aquarium idea would be "abstract mysterious" as all hell.
