Dutch Answer to Flooding: Build Houses that Swim

DER SPIEGEL ^ | September 26, 2005 | Gareth Davies

[tbird5]

The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses simply rise upwards as well. Such innovation could be good news for hurricane and flood-stunned America. But are water lovers prepared to live on swimming family arks?

Looking out from the terrace, heaven and earth merge into a grey blur. Heavy rain pours so incessantly that one would expect Anne van der Molen to be getting just a little nervous.

Model of a "swimming city." Could this be an answer for New Orleans, too?

"Tomorrow does not look any better, according to the weather forecast," she says, calmly sipping her coffee. She does so in spite of the fact that her house stands directly on the Maas dyke - on the side facing the river, to be exact. Yet the nurse, sitting on her garden chair under the awning, feels as cozy and safe as if she were "snowed in up in a mountain hut, with a log fire glowing and the pantry full." The Maas can go on rising as much as it likes, for all she cares. Her house can swim. As the water level climbs, the house itself can move up five meters, if necessary. "The elements don't bother me," she says.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

Great idea. I've been a huge proponent since watchin' the docks float up and down at the lake when the dam lets out. works wonderfully. Remember, it was the flood waters that caused most of the damaged, not the winds. Make concrete dome homes on sliding collars on stilts a requirement for new homes within 200 miles of the coast.

[vigilante2]

God help us new Florida building codes

[metmom]

And what do +100 mph winds do to floating houses? If it were simply a matter of rising and falling with the water level, that's one thing. Being hurled around by waves whipped up by hurricane force winds is another. I've seen pictures of boats that haven't fared too well after a hurricane; laying on their sides with large holes in the hulls. If a boat can't survive a hurricane, I can't imagine a house would do any better. What if they float out to sea? Then what?

[Paleo Conservative]

You beat me.

[Tuba-Dude]

....Houseboat?

[HiTech RedNeck]

I'd imagine that something like posts at each corner of the house footprint, each of which slides inside a mating channel that is sunk well down into the land in lieu of a foundation, would keep the house from capsizing because horizontal movement would be prevented.

[Texas Songwriter]

These are what we call boats.

[msnimje]

Or Floats?

[varyouga]

Many of the houses I see in the Florida keys are made from concrete, have metal roofs and are partially or fully elevated in case of flooding. These are the type of houses that should be required for hurricane/flood zones.

[isthisnickcool]

Hmm....