Symbio Explorer Research Vessel by Guo Qian is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award in Yacht and Marine Vessels Design Competition Category.
IronYacht· 2026
Symbio Explorer Research Vessel
by Guo Qian
Client: Southern Marine Science And Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai)
A' Design Award Winner in Yacht Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #179705The Design
About Symbio Explorer Research Vessel
SymBio Explorer is an autonomous research vessel designed for polar scientific expeditions. The vessel acts as a mothership for aerial, surface and underwater drone systems, and can be operated remotely. Continuous organic curves run from bow to stern, giving the hull a biomorphic form without rigid corners. Working equipment such as A-frame hoists is visually absorbed into the hull to keep the outline unified. The port deck supports drone launch, while the starboard side is used for recovery. The vessel is 88.5 meters long and 14 meters wide, and uses fully electric propulsion.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Symbio Explorer Research Vessel is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Symbio Explorer Research Vessel is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Symbio Explorer Research Vessel is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Conventional research vessels follow engineering logic with industrial forms. This design challenges the fixed opinion by conceiving mothership as an entirely new species, a futuristic artificial-marine organism", a mysterious intelligent entity. It is neither a cold exploration instruments nor a larger whale, but a new aesthetics object, which emphasize a new ethics of species interaction, ecological balance and sustainable coexistence. It can achieve polar scientific expedition. The Design enhance visual ruggedness and embody the spirit of exploration.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Designed Displacement 2100 tons; Length 88.5 meters; Width 14.0 meters; Depth 6.1 meters; Maximum speed 18 knots; Economic speed 13 knots; Fully Electric Propulsion ；Autonomous Navigation and Remote Control;
- Tags
- i-ship , Symbiosis, Biology, artificial-marine organism, Intelligence
- Production Technology
- The design employs continuous organic curves throughout form and detail. From bow to stern, from bridge to drone deck, the fluidity of these curves achieves formal closure while integrating functional requirements into a unified biomorphic envelope. This approach eliminates fragmented lines and rigid orthogonal geometries typical of modernist industrial design. Through the comprehensive application of form, material, and color, operational equipment such as A-frame hoists are visually absorbed into the hull, reducing their perceptual prominence and reinforcing the continuity of the overall silhouette.
- Design Challenge
- The overall spatial layout is the key to ship design. Engineers are mainly responsible for organizing functional relationships and improving the efficiency of equipment and pipeline layout and placement. Designers consider the skeletal proportions and overall appearance of the appearance, as well as the humanized content such as the behavior and experience, perception and comfort of scientists and crew members. The challenge of the project lies in the communication, collaboration, debate, and compromise between designers and engineers.
- Research
- The form research by two steps, named "reverse engineering". Firstly, polyurethane foam and oil sludge are used as materials, and the model is manually made at a scale of 1:100. Then, the solid model is taken as the object, and key point sets are collected by laser, and then imported into the 3D software (Rhino 7.0 version) for parametric design modification.
- Inspiration
- SymBio Explorer imagines the research vessel as a new species, proposes an "artificial-marine organism" between machine and living creature. The biomorphic silhouette externalizes its identity as an intelligent unmanned system mothership. Merging "Symbiosis" and "Biology," it embodies a new ecological ethics: the ocean is not a resource to exploit, but an entity coexisting with humanity.
- Project Duration
- The project started in June 2024 in Guangzhou and finished in May 2025 in Beijing.
- Operation Flow
- The SymBio Explorer is an autonomous, remotely-operable research vessel serving as a coordinated mothership for aerial, surface, and underwater drone systems. Certified with i-ship (No, R1, M, I) intelligent notation, it achieves autonomous navigation in open waters, assisted berthing, remote monitoring, equipment diagnostics, and predictive analysis. The port deck serves as UAV launch platform while starboard accommodates recovery; stern-mounted systems deploy surface craft and submersibles.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Modeling and Rendering, Mothership, Zhou Rui, Li Tianyu;
Image #2: Modeling and Rendering, silhouette, Zhou Rui, Li Tianyu;
Image #3: Modeling and Rendering, iceberg, Zhou Rui, Li Tianyu;
Image #4: Modeling and Rendering, 45 degree, Zhou Rui, Li Tianyu;
Image #5: Modeling and Rendering, close up, Zhou Rui, Li Tianyu;
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