Floating Houses

As torrential rain and flooding seem to be common place over the world at the moment, in the Netherlands, where half the country lies below mean sea level and flooding has long been a fact of life, construction and engineering company Dura Vermeer has come up with a novel solution to the problem: houses that float.

"These type of homes offer a good way of dealing with the effects of climate change," Dura Vermeer spokesman Johan van der Pol told CNN..."Unlike normal houses, they are extremely flexible when it comes to flooding, able to deal with a sea level rise of up to five metres...
"In a country such as Holland, where flooding is a serious problem, this sort of technology could have an extremely important role to play."

The company has developed two variations on the same theme: a floating house which, as the name suggests, sits permanently on the water like a boat; and an amphibious house that stands on dry land but, in the event of floods, is able to rise with the water.

Both employ a large hollow concrete cube at their base to provide buoyancy, and are "moored" in pairs to huge steel piles to keep them anchored in one place, the piles enabling them to withstand currents as strong as you would find on the open seas.

Water and electricity are brought in through flexible pipes that have been adapted to bend and move with the swell of the water.In every other respect they look and feel like normal homes

So far Dura Vermeer has built 46 such water-friendly units,14 floating and 32 amphibious, at Maasbommel, on the banks of the River Maas in Gelderland province in the centre of the country. Starting prices for these properties are around 260,000 euros (£186,000) meaning that, in terms of mass construction, it is only the world's more affluent nations that will be able to afford them.