These days people spend much of their time in the office and apart from a few dying potplants around the place the only inhabitants are human, the only sounds are papers shuffling, printers printing, phones ringing ect. In an office ecosystem a large number of speciecs could be introduced into a office block built especially for the purpose. This office block would include a giant atrium in the middle of the block that has trees and plants in petitions along the wall and on the ground so as the building gets higher the atrium gradually steps outwards so one canopy reaches to the next forest floor, this would mean that the whole atrium is forested and there is maximum room at the top for sunlight to come though. There would be a large pond at the bottom of the atrium on the ground floor and waterfalls cascading down the inside to water each level. The ponds would be stocked with fish and crayfish. As you gaze out your office window a herron grabs his lunch from the 10th floor stream. Birds sing and lemurs chase each other through the canopy, you forget about your work for a few seconds and feel refreshed. Animals would be introduced according to how dangerous they are to humans. Any species that die out will not be reintroduced as it is supposed to be self susstaining with the only thing provided by humans being water, although some of the larger animals might need to have food provided for them.-- Gulherme, Aug 07 2002 Please re-locate my office here. http://www.edenproject.com/ [angel, Aug 07 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004] Ken Yeang's Eco Tower http://www.hta-arch...uk/newsecotower.htm [namaste, Aug 07 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004] My office building has most of the items specified, though not in quite such Lost World splendour. Atrium in the middle with trees (OK, large plants, but *very* large), waterfall (OK, bubbly fountain). No crayfish or lemurs though (as far as I'm aware).-- angel, Aug 07 2002 In the process of being baked in Elephant & Castle. Not so many animals though. See link.-- namaste, Aug 07 2002 Since I have the attention span of - it's short - I require a more or less static workspace to get any sort of work done at all. However, I wouldn't mind exiting my office, crossing the stream and climbing the tree to the lunch room to refill my canteen with coffee. We could wear natty, tweed loincloths, and management would have special headdresses.-- xrayTed, Aug 07 2002 We have seaweed and algae in our water cooler.. does that count?-- Mr Burns, Aug 07 2002 You should see the refrigerator in our break room... lovely ecosystems consisting of a plenitude of splendid fungal life-forms, rivulets of spilled coffee cascading betwixt the slats in the shelving.... very relaxing.
Love the idea. Baked in a lot of CEO's offices. My office is too damn cheap to do all this for us; we have to settle for the gardens outside. Maybe a bonsai tree here and there? Pretty please?-- polartomato, Aug 08 2002 In our building, we've got five meter rubber trees and a one story waterfall/rapids but no animals. The glass roof opens to let out the heat and closes for a rain shower so there's no natural watering. You almost get blind to it after a while.-- FarmerJohn, Aug 08 2002 You know how you get bugs that have evolved to look just like leaves? After many many years in an office ecosystem you might get a similar phenomenon. I can imagine pinching someone's stapler only to later discover that it's actually some kind of bug, who's exploited the stapler stealing phenomenon to locate itself to new feeding grounds. Or even better, if it had evolved so that *apologises* staples were its staple diet, it could just lie back and get hand-fed a free meal.-- sild, Aug 08 2002 random, halfbakery