After a decade invested in design innovation, with the involvement of designers such as Rodolfo Dordoni, Citterio Viel, Piero Lissoni – who has become the company's art director since 2018 – Patricia Urquiola and Studio Christian Liaigre, the Italian shipbuilder Sanlorenzo, after conquering increasingly relevant segments of the yacht and superyacht market, has declared a sustainability and technological revolution, attention to the supply chain and dedicated services to customers as its goals for 2030.

This is the context to the company’s latest launch: the first unit of a superyacht, the 50Steel, where the management of on-board hotellerie is guaranteed by a green methanol fuel cell system.

The Reformer-Fuel Cell modules, developed with Siemens Energy, transform methanol into hydrogen, which becomes electricity without needing to be stored on board. The 100kW generated in this way increase the time such a floating architecture can spend in roadstead with its on-board life in full operation, and the diesel engines off: the goal is to turn almost 90 per cent of a superyacht’s operational time zero-emission.

The largest transformation comes, once again, in terms of space, with the layout redefinitions introduced by the new system, and the responses that Studio Zuccon International Project and Piero Lissoni have given to their presence, in defining the yacht’s exterior and interior design respectively – once again, the latter is a true interior architecture going beyond mere finishing touches.

A Sanlorenzo patent, the HER (Hidden Engine Room) distributes the propulsion and related engine room horizontally on a single level, thus opening up the possibility on the lower deck to create an additional lounge in continuity with the rear beach, as well as a gym and spa for the 10 guests that can be hosted. The garage and fuel cell accommodation move towards the bow, creating an ingenious design opportunity represented by the cross-cutting owner's suite.

But the strongest point is the overall development on five staggered decks, where the engineering of the steel structure and the interior design by Lissoni, developed for the first time on the same 3D model, have come together. The heart of life on board articulates in a three-level saloon – from the lower deck up: an unprecedented layout, with heights between 2.1 and 3.35 metres and double-height windows, linked with the system of the decks by a helicoidal staircase that has already become the Milanese architect's signature on Sanlorenzo, in the more usual spatial distributions as much as in the open spaces proposed in recent years.