When the Water Rises: Six Amphibious and Floating Homes Redefine Housing
Formosa, a 225-square-meter home designed by Baca Architects, successfully floated on the River Thames in Buckinghamshire during the intense floods of 2019 and 2020, demonstrating the effectiveness of its amphibious design featuring vertical guideposts. Although this approach increases costs by approximately 20%, it enables the main floor to stay close to the garden while effectively managing water levels exceeding 2.5 meters. This project is highlighted among six innovative residential designs on unstable terrain in designboom. Other notable projects include H&P Architects' 36-square-meter Floating Bamboo House in Vietnam, Studio RAP's The Float in Leiden (2021), Natura Futura's floating house rehabilitation in Ecuador, MAST and BIK Bouw's Spoorweghaven in Rotterdam, and i29's Floating Home in Amsterdam's Schoonschip community.
Key facts
- Baca Architects' Formosa in Buckinghamshire rises over 2.5 meters during floods.
- The Formosa house lifted successfully during the 2019 and 2020 severe floods.
- The amphibious system added about 20% to the cost of a comparable conventional house with a basement.
- H&P Architects developed Floating Bamboo House prototypes with reused plastic drums for buoyancy.
- The first Floating Bamboo House prototype measures just 36 square meters.
- Natura Futura rehabilitated seven floating houses along Ecuador's Babahoyo River.
- More than 250 floating houses existed along the Babahoyo River around two centuries ago.
- MAST and BIK Bouw proposed Spoorweghaven in Rotterdam with over 100 apartments on floating bases.
- i29's Floating Home is one of 46 households at Schoonschip in Amsterdam.
- Schoonschip houses more than 100 residents across 30 water plots, planned by Space&Matter.
Entities
Artists
- Le Minh Hoang
Institutions
- Baca Architects
- H&P Architects
- Studio RAP
- Natura Futura
- MAST
- i29
- Space&Matter
- BIK Bouw
- Slimstudio
Locations
- Vietnam
- Ecuador
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- River Thames
- Buckinghamshire
- Leiden
- Babahoyo River
- Rotterdam
- Amsterdam
- Mekong Delta
- Schoonschip