Floating houses — a new way to cope with floods
CAMBRIDGE — Dozens of experts will gather in Waterloo next week to share ideas about the growing field of amphibious architecture.
If that evokes sci-fi images of houses that convert into submarines, think again.
The idea at the centre of the conference that runs from June 25 to 28 at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo is actually very practical and simple.
Floods mean havoc for millions of people every year. With climate change bringing more extreme storms and rising seas, the danger of flooding is sure to increase in coming years, putting millions of lives and billions of dollars of property at risk.
Why not build homes that can ride above the flood waters?
“Floods are killing people and forcing displacement,” said Elizabeth English, chair of the International Conference on Amphibious Architecture and an associate professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo’s architecture school in Cambridge. “With climate change, that displacement is going to be more and more violent.”
Each year, more than 21 million people around the world are affected by flood, and that’s expected to more than double by 2030. The toll of such events can be devastating.
“Their homes are ruined, all their possessions are lost, they’re violently forced to move to a new place where they have no resources,” English said.
Especially in areas where floods can be frequent — think Louisiana, Bangladesh, or some remote First Nations reserves in Canada — officials have often focused on relocating whole communities, or on complicated and expensive engineering solutions that redirect or keep water away.
But a number of experts worldwide have turned their attention to designing homes, and even entire communities, that can resiliently adapt to flood conditions.
Some 80 architects, planners, engineers and policy-makers from almost 20 countries will gather in Cambridge to share their ideas about amphibious solutions.
Amphibious housing is often much cheaper, and much less disruptive to communities, which don’t have to be uprooted and which can recover much more quickly, English said.
Her work focuses on retrofitting houses in flood-prone areas with buoyancy blocks, so that if a flood hits, the house just floats above the water like a floating dock. The house is anchored with posts so that the house won’t drift away because of high winds or currents. When flood waters recede, instead of a house that’s filled with mould or mud, the house simply returns back to the same spot.
Topics at the conference include case studies from the United Kingdom, Thailand and the Netherlands; discussions about how to implement this new type of architecture in areas where building codes or insurers don’t recognize it; what sites are best suited to this new type of architecture; and a look at how traditional cultures have lived with flooding for centuries.
The idea of amphibious architecture is gaining interest as climate change makes flooding a more pressing concern, English said.
“When I started in 2006, I couldn’t mention it without getting laughed at. Now nobody laughs.
“They may not agree with the idea, they may not think it’s practical but at least they know we need other solutions, that the current tool kit needs expansion.”