Project to create floating homes for disaster areas wins UN award

A scheme to create floating homes to help families in developing countries survive natural disasters has won a United Nations award.

Dundee University’s Dream Home project scooped the Risk Award which is organised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Three, 196-square-metre homes were built for $12,000 each for the pilot phase of the project.

The homes also produce food, water, energy and sustainable livelihood options for the residents.

The Dundee project beat competition from more than 100 initiatives from 48 other countries.

Student Nandan Mukherjee accepted the award and the $100,000 prize money at the Global Platform 2019 conference in Geneva.

The prize money will be used to help take the project to the flood-prone river basins and deltas of Bangladesh.

Mr Mukherjee said: “A truly disaster-resilient home needs to be robust enough to float above the flood water, providing safety.

“It needs to generate enough food with proper nutritional balance. It needs access to water, electricity and all other basic amenities.

“The outside walls of the house we designed can be used for vertical gardens.

“We can harvest rainwater for self-sufficiency in drinking water and utilise renewable energy solutions for electricity,” he added.

In Bangladesh around 45 million people live in areas where cyclones frequently destroy homes and livelihoods.

The Dream Homes concept was developed to address this situation.