The FLOAT house, designed by Morphosis Architects, is capable of withstanding floods. The house, said to be the first permitted in the United States, has been brought to New Orleans and placed among more than a dozen other homes built through actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation.
(Patrick Dunn-Baker/Morphosis Archtects/AP)Floating house could ride New Orleans’ floods
Architects have designed a floating house that can withstand up to 12 feet of water.
By Stacey Plaisance | Associated Press Writer/ October 9, 2009 edition
NEW ORLEANS
A house capable of floating atop rising floodwaters made its debut Tuesday in New Orleans alongside more than a dozen other homes built through actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation.
Called the FLOAT House, the unique home aims to answer the challenge posed by the Big Easy’s flood risk, starkly illustrated by the rising waters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“I wanted to float it down the Mississippi River to New Orleans,” architect Thom Mayne says with a chuckle while in New Orleans for Tuesday’s event. Instead, the home was shipped in pieces from Los Angeles, where it had been constructed on UCLA’s campus.
The dwelling was designed by Morphosis Architects under the direction of Mr. Mayne, a professor at UCLA. Mayne said it’s the first of its kind to be permitted in the United States.
It is long and narrow like the traditional New Orleans shotgun home and sits on a raised 4-foot base. It also has a front porch. But the home is contemporary in design, with sharp angles and energy efficient features like solar panels and a roof designed to capture and recycle water.
“You have to build a house for the environment, for the reoccurrence of hurricanes, but it can also be energy efficient,” Mayne says.
No one lives there yet, but a family could buy the home and move in as early as next month, says Tom Darden, executive director of Make It Right. The group says it went through the local zoning and permitting channels before erecting the 1,000 square-foot, two-bedroom house on the site.
Residents must qualify through the foundation to be eligible for the floating house or other homes being built by Pitt’s group. They must have lived in the Lower 9th Ward before Hurricane Katrina struck the area in August 2005.
Mayne says the Morphosis floating house technology was developed and is in use in the Netherlands, where architects are working to address rising sea levels expected with climate change.
In case of a flood, the base of the house acts as a raft, allowing the home to rise on guide posts up to 12 feet as water levels rise. In the Lower 9th Ward, which saw some of the worst flooding in the city during Katrina, floodwater reached as high as 12 feet.
“It’s amazing,” Mr. Darden says. “Our goal is to be as innovative and eco-friendly as we can be, and the FLOAT House is certainly technology designed for this climate.”
The home’s base is a high-performance chassis made from polystyrene foam coated in glass fiber-reinforced concrete. It houses the essential equipment to supply power, water and fresh air.
While not intended for occupants to remain inside during a hurricane, the structure is designed to minimize catastrophic damage and preserve the homeowner’s investment, Mayne says.
The floating home should also allow residents to return within days of a hurricane or flood, Mayne says.
Mayne’s team, which included architects and UCLA graduate students, took about two years to design and build the house. He says he is now shopping for a production company to help mass produce it. Miller says the houses could sell for around $150,000.
Shannon Sharpe Briand, a New Orleans real estate agent with ReMax for more than seven years, says she thinks some buyers would be interested in the floating homes, especially if the going price is $150,000.
“That price is affordable, especially if the homes are move-in ready,” she says.
Mayne said he admires Pitt’s effort to build stronger, safer and more energy-efficient housing in New Orleans. Pitt founded Make It Right in 2007 to help Lower 9th Ward residents who lost their homes during Katrina.
More than a dozen homes have been completed — with families moved in — on the Make It Right site, and another 20 are under construction. Plans call for 50 homes on the site by December and 150 by the end of next year, Darden says.
Editor’s note: For more articles about the environment, see the Monitor’s main environment page, which offers information on many environment topics. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
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Comments
2. Jeff | 10.12.09
I live in Louisiana and this is not a new concept here. Many people who have homes(mostly camps) in flood prone areas have the bottom of there houses covered in poly styrene blocks. My parents camp floated for a month and a half this year when the river rose to the highest it has been in 20 years. They suffered no damage to there camp, but there was a lot of cleanup. The water got to 16′ at the location of there camp house and had to take boats in to check on things.
3. NOLA Guy | 10.12.09
Well, this is all good and well but I will point out just a few problems that have not been addressed here (I have seen them other places)
1) What happens when a car is swept under the house before it lowers?
2) What happens if the house raises slowly as designed but then a rush of water hits it? Will the supports bend?
3)What if the water comes in a rush and not slowly at all? Will the house essentially pin itself against the guides and not rise?
4) What happens to essential services? Plumbing is under the house - does it remain connected or does it disconnect? How do you reconnect once the house settles again? Is there a crawl space like many of the existing homes?
Not a new idea for sure - been around in the Netherlands for at least 2 decades where the issue is slow rising water. The issue in New Orleans is levees failing and massive amounts of water inundating the city in a short period of time. While areas further from levees would stand a better chance, there are still too many ‘what ifs’ that have not been addressed.
This is a giant leap into something that is not proven but I guess either way the insurance companies and US citizens will pay for the damage again in the end instead of doing things right the second time (lucky we got a second chance)
And to those that think living in New Orleans is crazy because of Hurricanes and flooding, think about where you live first - New York City - worse shape than New Orleans if a Cat 3 hits,California - How’s predicting earthquakes coming along? Midwest - Woops - Did the Army Corp build your levees too? Blizzards, Tornadoes etc etc. It is safe to say that the percentage of area available for habitation is vastly smaller than the areas in the US that do not suffer from - Sorry, but it’s true.
4. Annelies | 10.12.09
These houses would also be useful in places like Bangladesh. Great idea, and I’m sure the kinks will work out over time.
5. danwalter | 10.13.09
I doubt all those sharp angles would survive a hurricane. Would have been better designed with a rounder shape.
6. Jud Williams | 10.13.09
Many writers suggest that with time the designs of floating houses will improve. Sadly, it will be after the fact because the houses must be subjected to an actual flood to prove their worth. If the Netherlands have been building such dwellings maybe we should simply use their designs rather than trying to reinvent the wheel
7. Tom N | 10.13.09
I do know that the utility connections are designed to disconnect when the house floats. Upon returning to the ground, the owner can reconnect the links easily.
When will people learn that safety cannot be bought? The answer is to live simply and be grateful for what you have. Buildings and possesions will be destroyed. People are what count.
Some places are more likely to be destroyed than others. Everyone has to make the choice on whether the risk is worth it.
8. J.Kray | 10.14.09
As a builder who has lived in New Orleans since Katrina, this idea also occurred to me. Yes there are design pitfalls to be worked out like NolaGuy mentions; I see this type of floating foundation as a significant improvement in thinking about how to think about flooding, if not the final design.
I mean, take a look at the structures that result from the existing building codes and FEMA regs: people are raising up small homes on cribs of piers to incredible heights (12+ feet) that cost more than the house itself. And since flood heights are so variable in the Nola region, does it really make sense to regulate fixed heights anyways? I heard a story about a family out in Pass Christian who built their dreamhouse up 15 feet but then the Katrina surge came in at 17 feet and the house still got ruined. I think building a flexible and responsive floating foundation is a much better way of thinking about the problem. Plus: in the case of emergency, the house becomes a barge-refuge instead of a jail pinned to the earth.
9. Karen Anne | 10.15.09
I think this is a great idea. Living on the coast in New England, it would certainly be something I’d look at if I were building new. (Yes, I know building on the coast is not great - tell that to my grandfather who built my house in the 1920s.)
However, a lot of hurricane damage here is done by wind. I wonder about that impact on house design. Although possibly comparatively slowly rising floodwaters back from the coast are a different matter.
10. Lilliane P | 10.15.09
It’s about time. They’ve been building these kinds of houses in Asia for centuries in flood prone areas, and they haven’t suffered the kind of destruction you see in the States. Bangkok, for example, floods every year.
What is this “permitted” idea”? Where did that come from? Aping the manors
and the gentry in Europe? Ridiculous.
11. Deborah J. Boyd | 10.15.09
One question was regarding the plumbing. My solution for this is to install the anchor posts 20′ high. The skill here is to elevate the homes electrically prior to the incoming water. The use of flexible plumbing connection is required. The flexible connections would need to be about 8′ so that when the house is elevated to that point, a human would need to go in and disconnect & store the flex-pipes to the house as well as close off the municipal connections. The municipal connections would need to be containable in a really strong method to withstand all that gets moved in a flood. So key is to move them up before the flood. If the flood is not so bad the cost of elevation is way less than replacement.
12. Mekhong Kurt | 10.20.09
I read about similar houses in the Netherlands sometime back, and was intrigued.
I doubt that floating buildings crushing cars or the like (or people) is likely in many cases. Besides, stuff gets tossed about like children’s toys if floodwatyers are deep enough, especially when they rise quickly, or, as happened in the Ninth Ward, a **** breaks.
I did wonder about the supports/guides and whether they might bend or break. I suppose that very well might happen. I also suppose any actually attached to the house might be reinforced with metal, concrete or wooden beams around the houses exterior perimeter. Of course, nothing’s completely foolproof.
It’ll be interesting to see how these floating houses fare come the next big floor and/or hurricane to NOLA.
13. Paul | 10.20.09
Why not just avoid building in a flood plain? This house floats, like all those boats that were washed ashore and smashed into stuff like houses. If I were dumb enough to live where they have to run pumps 24/7 because the land is below sea-level, I’d rent both a place to live and a car to drive.
14. Mekhong Kurt | 10.22.09
I just thought of something else, in a “DUH!” moment.
I live in Thailand, and traditional Thai housing might be applicable in places that tend to flood.
That housing is built on stilts. I don’t mean several storeys up in the air, but, typically, one floor off the grounds. Flooding is a problem here — in fact, it’s now the monsoon season, and many parts of the country have or are having flooding, sometimes severe.
While this kind of housing has become increasingly rare over the last several decades, it could offer one possibility. Further, the underlying concept can be applied to highrises, with parking on, say, the first two or three floors. Yes, people’s vehicles might get flooded out, but at least they would be above the floodwaters.
I don’t know if houses built using the traditional Thai design would cost more, less, or the same as one the same in every way except built on ground level.
15. Michael N | 11.12.09
The Float House lacks innovation. They have been building these for years in The Netherlands, like modern houseboats.
The floating house is fine for gradual water level changes, not flood hazards.
For this reason, FEMA doesn’t insure floating homes, but does insure other flood-resistant building types. Imagine a flood surge with debris: the Float House with its improperly placed windows and dubious hydrodynamics would sustain more than significant damage.
Recommendation: search out research specialists who have already designed buildings for hazard zones, not a marketing branch of a Hollywood star architect firm.
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1. Bob Brown | 10.10.09
Good idea, but I am sure that many details have to be resolved before the concept us completely acceptable. It is interesting to note that they “went through the local zoning and permitting channels before erecting” the house.
Habitat for Humanity should take note and determine if there any ideas which they could use and strive to make any good ideas acceptable to local zoning regulations.