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Tecture Mag – Arkup

By Antony Funell
Tecture Mag
2022.Jan.28

水上に浮き気候変動に対応する家

ジャッキアップ技術を組み合わせたフローティングヴィラ〈Arkup〉

CULTURE2022.01.28

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

さまざまなフローティングアーキテクチャを手がけるオランダの設計事務所Waterstudio.NLのケーン・オルトゥイス(Koen Olthuis)とディベロッパーであるダッチ・ドックランズ(Dutch Docklands)が、ジャッキアップ技術を活用したフローティングヴィラ〈Arkup〉を発表しました。

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

フローティングアーキテクチャの重要性

貿易の利便性から世界の大都市の約90%が沿岸部に位置しています。そして沿岸部は地球の地表面積のうち2%ほどにもかかわらず、世界人口の約10%が居住しており、今後も増加し、2050年には14億人に達すると見込まれています。

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

一方、気候変動の影響から水害の規模と頻度は年々増加傾向しており、2050年には海面が50cm上昇し8億人が影響を受けると予測されています。

海面上昇に対応したウォーターフロント開発や、水上に浮かせることで海面上昇に対応する「フローティングプロジェクト」が求められています。

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

海面から「浮く」フローティングヴィラ

Waterstudio.NLが設計した〈Arkup〉は、浮体式基礎と水上ジャッキアップ技術を組み合わせた次世代のフローティングアーキテクチャです。

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

暴風雨の際には、浮体式建物を水面から3m以上持ち上げることで、激しい波の影響を受けないようにすることができます。この安定性の向上により、マンションや高層ビルなどの大規模なフローティングストラクチャの建設が可能になります。

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

水とともに暮らす「ブルーシティ」

Waterstudio.NLのケーン・オルトゥイス(Koen Olthuis)は次のように主張します。
「世界で進む都市化と気候変動は、都市における居住性に影響を与えています。水と戦うのではなく、水とともに暮らす都市『ブルーシティ』となることで、パフォーマンスの高い都市となるでしょう。」

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

世界で進化を続けるフローティングアーキテクチャ、海に囲まれる日本だからこそ注目していきたいですね!

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

Arkup / Waterstudio.NL

以下は、Waterstudio.NLのリリース(英文)です。

Floating architecture is on the move. Designs are getting more luxurious and quality is rising but more important the technology taking a leap.

With the completion of the Miami based Arkup portable hurricane proof villa designed by Koen Olthuis of Waterstudio a new generation of floating buildings has emerged. The evolution of floating villas has resulted in a hybrid solution that combines the flexibility of the floating foundation with the stability of offshore jack-up technology. During storms the floating building can be lifted up more than 10ft above water level out of reach of the heavy waves. This upgrade of stability performance unlocks opportunities for large scale floating structures as condominiums and floating high rise which will benefit from the additional support of the lowered spuds.

New larger urban components will accelerate the Rise of the Blue city.

Urbanization and the effects of climate change put pressure on livability in big cities. “Rise of the blue city” argues that Cities that are threatened by water today will be the best performing cities of tomorrow if they start using the water to achieve a higher flexibility and shorter response time. Stop building for today’s demands, start building for change!

Future Proof: Arkup Luxury “Boathouse”

By Rhapsody magzine
2019.March.05

The Arkup #1 floating home is a US$5 million luxury boathouse investment against rising sea levels

For sale for US$5.5 million, the luxurious Arkup floating house should be the ultimate high net worth individual’s contingency plan against the looming spectre of rising sea levels

The Arkup No.1 Floating Home is not just a luxurious concept but a revolutionary one. Designed by Dutch architect Koen Olthuis of Waterstudio.nl, Arkup is a unique floating home realised from Olthuis’s  philanthropic focus on future habitats and the challenges of rising sea levels and floods resulting from climate change as well as the needs of a booming world population.

The 4 bedroom (each equipped with its own en-suite bathroom) luxury “houseboat” is an off-grid “blue dwelling” and so you aren’t exactly “living on a yacht” – you get to enjoy all the creature comforts of landed real estate except that you’re living right on the water instead of a mere waterfront.

Ranked 122nd on TIME Magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world, Olthuis and his firm specialises in floating structures and homes. His own native Netherlands (through innovative use of dikes, Holland is built mostly on wetlands) with one-third reclaimed land and sits below sea-level so water-based issues are challenges that he has a unique perspective on. The Arkup No.1 or officially “Arkup #1” is a 75 ft (22.9m) long two-story luxury houseboat with 4,350 sq ft of space; the first edition floating home was furnished by Brazil’s Artefacto.

For sale for US$5.5 million, Olthuis’s luxurious Arkup floating house should be the ultimate high net worth individual’s contingency plan against the looming spectre of climate change. Unveiled at the recent Miami Ycaht Show, the Arkup #1 floating home boasts solar power, stabilizing hydraulic stilts, and its own engines. The hydraulic stilts are an innovating  self-elevating system can go down 20 feet to lift it above the waves, keeping you and your home safe in a storm. Suffice it to say, if you happened to be caught away from the shore during a storm or a calamitous tsunami event, the Arkup is a literally boathouse, it would just float on the mega waves. Arkup No. 1 is also designed to withstand a Category 4 hurricane (up to 250 km/h winds) and carries stories stored solar energy reserves in its 1,000 kWh battery pack for night time power needs as well as a rainwater collection system for moderate water self-sufficiency.

A pair of 100kW thrusters with 272 horsepower can move the Arkup #1 luxury boathouse up to seven knots, allowing high net worth individuals to flee some of the devastation should a climate disaster strike. Arkup livable yachts combine the best attributes of yachts, floating houses and waterfront villas, with the added benefits of being self-sufficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

#1 is for sale in Miami and there are plans to build three more in the next 12 months. There are also preliminary project plans for eco-resorts in the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean.

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A $6 million floating home that can withstand Category 4 hurricanes is now a reality. Take a look inside

By Aria Bendix
Business Insider
February.25.2019
Photo credits: Craig Denis

  • After years of development, the housing startup Arkup has debuted a floating home that can withstand rising sea levels and Category 4 hurricanes.
  • The home contains a hydraulic system that lifts it above water and anchors it during heavy winds.
  • Arkup envisions a future where entire communities in Miami and other major cities are designed to float.

Foto: Arkup Arkup’s first floating home debuted in February.

When the housing startup Arkup revealed its plan to build a floating, hurricane-proof yacht in 2017, South Florida had just witnessed the devastating effects of Hurricane Irma, a Category 4 storm that destroyed hundreds of residences.

The company’s models were designed to weather a storm of that magnitude, but it would be another two years before they became a reality.

In February, Arkup debuted its first floating residence at a yacht show in Miami. Climatologists have pointed to the city as one of the areas most vulnerable to climate change.

The price tag for a fully furnished residence is steep – just under $6 million – but Arkup has plans to deliver smaller, more affordable units down the line. The company is accepting offers on its first model, as well as future models that have yet to be built.

For now, the yacht’s solar-powered roofs and hydraulic anchoring system come at a high cost. Its sleek designs also cater to luxury clients who often prefer to live on or near the water.

Take a look inside Arkup’s first floating home.

As a longtime Miami resident, Arkup cofounder Arnaud Luguet noticed that local authorities were struggling to prepare for the effects of climate change.

Foto: The units are just as mobile as a typical yacht.sourceArkup

Luguet saw floating homes as a way to make communities more resilient. He teamed up with Nicolas Derouin, an executive who shared his passion for the ocean and renewable energy, to create Arkup in 2016.

“We wanted to provide the next generation of floating homes or house boats that would be self-sufficient, sustainable, and also mobile,” Derouin told Business Insider.


Arkup’s model was inspired by floating houseboats in the Netherlands, where it’s common to live on the water.

Foto: The interior was designed by the home-furnishing company Artefacto.sourceArkup

Luguet and Derouin partnered with the Netherlands-based architecture firm Waterstudio, which specializes in designing floating homes.

Both Arkup and Waterstudio envision a future in which entireneighborhoods are built on the water in major cities such as New York and Miami.


Arkup’s first-ever model can be built on either land or water.

Foto: Waterstudio sees water as an asset, not a challenge, to new construction.sourceArkup

At 4,350 square feet, the home contains a customizable layout of four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms. It’s also mobile, so it can be driven to new locations.

Hydraulic studs anchor the yacht in place so it can withstand winds of up to 155 mph.

Foto: The residences provide 360-degree views of the water.sourceArkup

The wind speed of a Category 4 hurricane ranges from 130 to 156 mph.

Although the home is designed to bob with the water during a storm, Derouin said the studs help stabilize the structure to prevent motion sickness among residents.

“We wanted [residents] to be as safe and comfortable in the house as they would be on land,” he said.


The yacht’s jack-up system allows the vessel to be lifted up to 20 feet above water.

Foto: Derouin said storm surge poses a greater danger to homes than heavy winds.sourceArkup

Scientists predict the US could see nearly 6 feet of sea-level rise by the end of the century under the most extreme climate conditions. Arkup’s homes would clear these water levels, Derouin told Business Insider.


Residents can disconnect from sewage lines thanks to a system that collects, stores, and purifies rainwater.

Foto: Residents of an Arkup home can live off-grid.sourceArkup

The homes also have zero emissions and are powered by rooftop solar panels.


Derouin said Arkup’s next venture is to build floating communities and resorts.

Foto: Miami could see nearly 6 feet of sea-level rise by 2100.sourceArkup

The company hopes to use modular construction to build multiple units on the water. Derouin said Arkup has been in talks with private-island owners about developing floating communities.

The company is also interested in creating more affordable models, such as a floating complex of student homes. Derouin said Arkup is looking into building a “ranch” of smaller yachts that are each about 1,600 square feet. By building smaller, he said, Arkup can reduce its price tag.

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These floating buildings are made from thousands of plastic bottles that can withstand flooding

By Lenna Garfield
Business Insider
April.20.2018
Photo Credits:Waterstudio

 

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world when it comes to flooding, storms, and impact from sea level rise.

In 2016, Bangladesh experienced four cyclones – a record number in the country’s recent history. And by 2050, sea level rise could inundate 17% of its land and displace up to 18 million people in Bangladesh, according to Atiq Rahman, the nation’s leading climate scientist.

Extreme weather events already flood many homes, schools, and commercial buildings every year.

An Amsterdam-based architecture firm called Waterstudio has come up with one possible solution: floating structures that can withstand storms.

Waterstudio will deliver five of these structures, called City Apps, in Dhaka, Bangladesh in late November.

Check out the project below.

Waterstudio will soon premiere five City Apps in Korail, a low-income community in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They are portable and can move to different neighborhoods.

Foto: A City App classroom in Amsterdam, Netherlands. source Waterstudio

City Apps can be customized for several types of uses, including classrooms, water filtration systems, medical clinics, or homes.


During the day, one structure will be a classroom featuring 20 tablet workstations and two teaching screens. In the evening, it will be used as an internet cafe.

Foto: A City App classroom in Amsterdam, Netherlands. source Waterstudio

The other four units will consist of a community kitchen, a facility with a public restroom and shower, and another with a back-up generator for electricity. The units are powered by solar panels located on the roofs.

Foto: A City App classroom in Amsterdam, Netherlands. source Waterstudio

The units will be buoyed to the sea floor, and move up and down as water levels rise, helping them withstand storms. They’re designed to be air-tight to reduce the risk of flooding.

Foto: source Waterstudio

The City Apps, which cost $53,000, were built in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Waterstduio CEO Koen Olthius told Business Insider.

Foto: source Waterstudio

Each foundation is made of wooden pallets, wire, and thousands of recycled plastic bottles, which allow the structures to float.

Foto: source Waterstudio

Founded in 2003, Waterstudio is known for its floating structures. It has constructed more than 200 buildings on water around the world, including these floating villas for a neighborhood called IJburg in Amsterdam, Netherlands:

Foto: source Waterstudio

Olthius hopes the City App project will provide valuable resources to neighborhoods in developing nations, especially ones threatened by climate change.

Foto: source Waterstudio

Waterstudio is working with local developers on the project in case they want to build more units.


“Some people live very close to the water — in vulnerable locations,” he said. “They can use these structures to improve their neighborhoods.”

Foto: source Waterstudio

Click here for the pdf

Click here for the website

 

 

Dubai is getting these stunning $23 million floating villas that can withstand flooding

By Leanna Garfield
Business Insider
April.20.2018
Photo Credits: Waterstudio

Like a number of coastal areas around the world, the United Arab Emirates is becoming increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise.

According to a 2017 study from the Emirates Wildlife Society and World Wildlife Fund, researchers expect ocean levels to rise around three feet by 2100. If that happens, water would inundate about 8.1% of the Emirate of Ajman, 1.2% of the Emirate of Sharjah, and 5.9% of the Emirate of Umm Al-Quwain. Many UAE residents live in these coastal areas.

A new type of floating home could withstand future rising sea levels. Waterstudio, a Dutch architecture firm that exclusively designs floating structures, is creating 33 private villas on artificial islands off the coast of Dubai. Developer Dutch Docklands will build the first one this month.

The buoyed islands will bob up and down with water levels so they won’t flood, Waterstudio founder Koen Olthuis told Business Insider.

Take a look at the project below.

This year, Dubai is getting its first of 33 floating villas by Waterstudio, which collaborated with French oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau.

There’s no set timeline on when the entire neighborhood, dubbed Amillarah, will be complete.

 


Foto: source Waterstudio

The islands will also include outdoor patios with trees and a pool.

 


Foto: source Waterstudio

The homes will not exactly be affordable. Each island will cost between $23 million and $27.5 million.


Foto: source Waterstudio

They went on sale in 2015.

The islands will range in size from 150,000 to 450,000 square feet.


Foto: source Waterstudio

The only way to reach them will be by boat or seaplane. If water levels rise, so will the homes.


Foto: source Waterstudio

The floating, concrete base of the islands are designed to last for 100 years, according to Olthuis.


Foto: source Waterstudio

Waterstudio has exclusively built floating structures for over a decade. In 2008, the team completed this floating neighborhood in Amsterdam.


Foto: source Waterstudio

Waterstudio’s latest luxury villas are part of an even more ambitious project that began in 2003 called “The World,” a 24-square-mile archipelago of over 300 artificial islands. Dubai-based developer wants to start building homes and hotels on them by 2020.


Foto: These islands won’t be around much longer. source Wikimedia Commons

Prior to 2009, “The World” had already racked up $25 billion debt. The financial challenges have only gotten more difficult.

The Amillarah villas could revive the fantastical project. “We will see more floating neighborhoods in the next five to 10 years,” Olthuis said. “Cities will start to see the water as an asset.”

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How floating architecture could help save cities from rising seas

By Kate Baggaley
NBC

 

 

From New York to Shanghai, coastal cities around the world are at risk from rising sea levels and unpredictable storm surges. But rather than simply building higher seawalls to hold back floodwaters, many builders and urban planners are turning to floating and amphibious architecture — and finding ways to adapt buildings to this new reality.

Some new buildings, including a number of homes in Amsterdam, are designed to float permanently on shorelines and waterways. Others feature special foundations that let them rest on solid ground or float on water when necessary. Projects range from simple retrofits for individual homes in flood zones to the construction of entire floating neighborhoods — and possibly even floating cities.

“It’s fundamentally for flood mitigation, but in our time of climate change where sea level is rising and weather events are becoming more severe, this is also an excellent adaptation strategy,” says Dr. Elizabeth English, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Ontario. “It takes whatever level of water is thrown at it in stride.”

NEW KIND OF FLOOD READINESS

From ground level, amphibious houses look like ordinary buildings. The key difference lies with their foundations, which function as a sort of raft when the water starts to rise.

In some cases, existing homes can be retrofitted with amphibious foundations to give people in flood-prone areas a less costly alternative to moving or putting their homes on stilts, says English, founder of Buoyant Foundation Project, a nonprofit based in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana and Cambridge, Ontario. “What I’m trying to do is to take existing communities and make them more resilient and give them an opportunity to continue to live in the place that they’re intimately connected to,” she says.

There are also new constructions built with amphibious foundations, such as a home designed by Baca Architects on an island in the River Thames in Marlow, England. When waters are low, the house rests on the ground like a conventional building; during floods, it floats on water that flows into a bathtub-shaped outer foundation.

Amphibious architecture isn’t about to displace conventionally designed buildings. But experts say it could become the norm in parts of Virginia, Louisiana, Alaska, and Florida, and other areas that are vulnerable to rising seas. “For some communities this might be a saving grace,” says Illya Azaroff, director of design at New York-based +LAB Architect PLLC and an associate professor of architecture at the New York City College of Technology.

FLOATING HOMES

Other architects are taking things a step further and building on the water itself. The Netherlands is a hotspot for such floating construction. Waterstudio, a Rijswijk-based architecture firm, recently designed nine floating homes for the town of Zeewolde. The homes look a bit like oversized floating houseboats.

Waterstudio has also designed a number of floating homes for Amsterdam’s IJBurg neighborhood. Soon these will be joined by a floating housing complex designed by the Dutch firm Barcode Architects and the Danish firm Bjarke Ingels Group. When construction is completed in 2020, the complex will have 380 apartments as well as floating gardens and a restaurant.

Floating buildings and neighborhoods are not a new idea, of course. Vietnam and Peru, among other countries, have had floating communities for centuries. But floating architecture could allow cities around the world to grow and evolve in new ways, says Waterstudio founder Koen Olthuis.

Olthius envisions cities with floating office buildings that can be detached and rearranged as needed. “It can be that you come back to a city after two or three years and some of your favorite buildings are in another location in that city,” he says, adding that buildings might be moved close together to conserve heat and separated when summer arrives.

SPREADING OUT

Floating architecture can do more than prevent flood damage. By allowing the construction of buildings over water, it can give cities additional room to grow. Waterstudio is collaborating with developer Dutch Docklands on a planned community in the Maldives that will include 185 floating villas. The flower-shaped development will have restaurants, shops, and swimming pools.

The firms are also collaborating in the Maldives to build private artificial islands that will be anchored to the seafloor. The idea is to provide new places to live for residents of the low-lying islands, which are at risk of being swallowed up by rising seas. “We will let the commercial project show that the construction can work and then work with the government to help the local community,” Jasper Mulder, vice president of Dutch Docklands, told Travel + Leisure.

 

The islands are also meant to offer a sheltered new habitat for marine life.

There are also plans for entire floating cities. The Seasteading Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, hopes to attract 200 to 300 residents for a floating village scheduled for completion in the waters off Tahiti by 2020. Homes and other buildings in the community will be constructed atop a dozen or so floating platforms connected by walkways. Eventually, the institute hopes to create communities built from hundreds of platforms with millions of residents.

“I don’t know if amphibious or floating architecture will go that far, but it is within the realm of possibility,” Azaroff says. “The overarching goal is to, one, keep people safe and, two, to allow the natural cycles to continue. Floating architecture allows you to do that in a really profound way that we didn’t have before.”

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Oceans of opportunity

CLADmag
from Cladbook2017
Issue 3.2016
PhotoCredits: Waterstudio

Koen Olthuis has been touting the benefits of floating cities for years – and now people are starting to take notice

A number of high-profile projects have recently brought attention to Koen Olthuis’s approach to living on water. Those include the floating Citadel apartment block in the Netherlands and important large-scale leisure projects such as luxury private islands in Dubai, floating hotels and resorts in the Maldives and a snowflake-shaped hotel off Norway. The potential for floating architecture, Olthuis says, goes far beyond one-off developments: it’s an urban planning tool.
“For the past 15 years, I’ve been designing these floating structures,” says Olthuis, who established his design firm Waterstudio in 2003. “When I started, all the other architects thought I was crazy, but now this approach is starting to be adopted by developers. We’re also talking to governments around the world about how floating developments can upgrade and improve their cities.” The big picture in all this, according to Olthuis, is that extending cities beyond the waterfront and indeed further out to sea reduces the pressure on overpopulated urban areas – where 70 per cent of people will live by 2050 – and offers flexible solutions for problems thrown up by rising sea levels and climate change.

How do floating structures work at a city level?
Governments worldwide are looking at how floating developments can improve their cities. I propose a system of modular floating developments – floating urban components that add a particular function to the existing grid of a city. With this system, any question a city asks can be answered immediately. If a city needs parking, bring in floating parking. If it has green issues, bring in floating parks and Sea Trees [Waterstudio’s offshore green structures]. The system is responsive to the needs of dynamic urban communities.

Is floating architecture the way forward for urban living?
It’s project to product. You’ll be able to order buildings in, and sell or lease buildings you don’t want or need. We’ve only explored a fraction of the possibilities, but in the next 10 to 15 years, more and more architecture will start to explore the possibilities of floating developments and it will grow from something that’s a fringe architecture to something that’s mainstream. The stupid thing is that we live in dynamic communities and yet we build static structures. With rapidly changing social structures and technologies, we need flexible cities. I’m not saying we have to build floating cities, but that every city that is next to the water should have at least 5 per cent of its buildings on the water. That would create flexibility.
It’s not the only way, but it’s something that is inevitable. It’s about rethinking and finding solutions for major problems.

What other advantages are there?
We believe green is good but blue is better. Water provides many tools to make more durable and sustainable cities. You have water cooling for the buildings, you have flexibility, you have buildings that rise and fall with the water level, you don’t have to demolish a building that’s no longer needed because you can repurpose it or even sell it. People, developers and politicians are starting to see that this is something that brings in money and solves problems. It’s a feasible way to build better cities.

What do you mean by flexibility?
I don’t mean that you’ll be able to take your house and move to another city or another neighbourhood. I mean flexibility on a larger scale, where cities and urban planners are able to move a complete neighbourhood half a mile or bring in temporary floating functions – like stadiums – and use them for one or two years before they leave for another city. This large-scale flexibility makes sense. Take the Olympic Games. It’s so strange that every four years we build so many hotels and stadiums and only use them for a few weeks. Imagine if as a city you could just lease these floating functions from a developer. Cities who don’t have as much money as London or Rio or Beijing could also host these types of events because it would cost much less money.

Is it something you can foresee happening in the near future ?
Yes, maybe not with stadiums – because we can put them up easily – but with the hotel business, certainly. Qatar has the World Cup in 2022 and they need 35,000 hotel rooms for that event. But if they built 35,000 hotel rooms, within 10 years they’d be empty. So they’re thinking about using cruise ships. As the harbour facility is not big enough, they’re also thinking about the idea of fl oating harbours, or fl oating cruise terminals – something that can facilitate these cruise ships for a few weeks, and then a: er that you can bring the fl oating harbours to another location.

Can you tell us about Amillarah Private Islands?
Yes. With OQYANA Real Estate Company and developers Dutch Docklands, 33 private islands are being built as part of The World Islands project in Dubai. The islands are being sold by Christie’s International Real Estate, with a starting price of US$10m. It’s a really high-end project. The fl oating islands look like tropical islands covered in trees, but in fact they’re more like superyachts. They’re built in Holland and then moved to the location in Dubai and anchored there. They are self-su5cient with their own electricity and their own water. Within the next 10 years there’ll be more development around them, so we’re making it look like its own archipelago. If you fly over, it looks like a series of green islands. OQYANA has a masterplan around Amillarah that includes shops, hotels and all kinds of leisure architecture. This is just the first step of the development, but the beauty of this floating architecture is that it moves very fast. Once you’ve built the islands you can just tow them in and connect them to the boKom, either with cables or telescopic piles and they’re ready. Compare that to the manmade islands at The World. There’s still very liKle built there. It’s di5cult to get labour there, di5cult to build the right foundations and there’s no electricity or water, so developers don’t know how to build there without losing money.

Have any been sold?
Not yet. We’ll have an island there, like a show home, from December this year (2016). With the history of the property market in Dubai, it’s beKer to have the first islands  there so people can have a look and understand what it’s all about, especially at the prices people pay in this type of market. I should add that if I only ever build floating islands for the rich then I’m doing something wrong. The start of this story for me was to create a new tool for cities that are facing urbanisation, overpopulation and climate change – and also for cities that need to brand themselves to aKract inhabitants. As well as being able to answer these big, fast-changing urban problems, these floating structures bring a certain character and appeal to a city – a USP.

Why does your concept appeal to resort or hotel developers?
On water, leisure architecture, including resorts and hotels, has the possibility to change. You can adapt and create functions that are not only moveable but also transformative through time, for instance, through the seasons. With seasonal structures you can open up the buildings in the summer, make buildings more dense or more spread out. You can add functions or take them away. To me, it’s one big playing field and we’re trying to work out what it means for the future of leisure architecture and real estate, not just how these things will look, but the economic eUects too.

What kind of economic benefits might there be?
A project we started working on a few years ago was a floating hotel and conference centre for the Maldives – the Greenstar. As well as answering fast-changing urban problems, floating structures bring a certain character to a city – a USP The star-shaped hotel has five legs, each with 80 rooms inside, but instead of building five legs, we build six. One of these legs will stay in a harbour in India. In five or seven years time, when the hotel needs refurbishing, you bring the sixth leg to the hotel and connect it, sending the others one by one to be renovated. The hotel doesn’t need to shut down, and the work can be carried out where it’s easy and cost-eBective to get the materials and labour to do it.

What other projects are you working on?
We’re working in the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Oman, exploring the potential of ecotourism. We’re looking at building satellite resorts for land-sited hotels, that float out at sea where there are coral reefs or mangroves. Floating resorts don’t leave any scars on the environment – they’re scarless developments, which can even have a positive eBect on the environment. For example, we work with marine engineers and environmentalists to help build floating structures that aKract underwater life. In places like Dubai, it’s so hot that it’s very
diLcult to create the right environment for fish and marine life, but the shade of these floating islands can provide a starting point for new marine ecosystems. We’re also working with master developer Dutch Docklands and the Maldivean government on the ongoing Five Lagoons Ocean Flower resort and residences. Finally, we’re looking at developing cities that face troubles with the environment, density and infrastructure – and seeing how water can be part of that solution.

What are the challenges?
Progress on Norway’s Krystall Hotel is slow because of laws that prevent building on the shoreline. Regulations and laws can be a hurdle, and may need to be changed to adapt to floating architecture. But, we are slowly moving to a marketplace where these floating developments are accepted. There’s a bright future for this technology.

Slum Schools
Waterstudio has been pioneering the concept of floating facilities that can be moored at waterside slum communities anywhere in the world. City Apps are floating developments based on a standard sea-freight container. City Apps can be established in water where there is scarcity of space and can be used to upgrade sanitation, housing and communication installations. The first City App, a floating school, is being built for a slum in Dhaka. “One billion people live in slums worldwide and half of them are close to the water. We can use City Apps to instantly improve the quality of life there,” says Olthuis. Because governments see these as temporary solutions, it’s much easier to get permission to do this than to build a facility on land.

 

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Interview of the The New York Times with Koen Olthuis

CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE NOV. 28, 2016

A Dutch Architect Offshores the Future of Housing

Floating houses in Amsterdam designed by Koen Olthuis. Mr. Olthuis’s architectural firm, Waterstudio, which he founded in 2003, has completed more than 200 floating homes and offices. CreditFriso Spoelstra/Waterstudio.nl
RIJSWIJK, The Netherlands — Early next year when a converted cargo container on a floating foundation of plastic bottles opens on the flood-prone shores of Korail Bosti, Bangladesh’s largest slum, few of its users are likely to celebrate the 320-square-foot space as a revolution. Yet, according to Koen Olthuis, the lead architect on the project, it is part of the greatest transformation in urbanism since Elisha Otis built the safety brake that gave rise to the modern elevator, skyscrapers and ultimately urban density.

“It will change the DNA of cities,” Mr. Olthuis said of the technology at the heart of his designs in an interview in his studio, a converted supermarket in this suburb of The Hague that also serves as his business headquarters.

In an era when the needs of growing urban centers are changing rapidly and rising sea levels threaten waterside construction, Mr. Olthuis has been busy working on a solution: the floating building.

Mr. Olthuis founded Waterstudio — which he describes as the first modern architecture firm to exclusively build floating houses — in 2003. More than a decade on, he and his team consider themselves pioneers in a growing movement. The firm has completed more than 200 floating homes and offices, many of them in the Netherlands, where several floating neighborhoods have sprung up in the last decade.

The team’s designs have gone global, with showcases ranging from exclusive floating islands in Dubai and the Maldives for the superrich, to more modest designer homes in Europe and the United States, to projects like the floating container, called City App, that will serve as an education center in the poorest neighborhoods in Asia.

A rendering of a floating private island that can be moved around to suit the owner’s desires.CreditWaterstudio.nl and Amillarah Private Islands
Mr. Olthuis was a candidate for Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in 2007, and he has been described as a visionary in the media. The BBC dubbed him the “Floating Dutchman” when featuring his plan to build a floating block in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands.

“He was really one of the first architects who saw that building on water could develop a whole new design language,” said Tracy Metz, an American journalist based in the Netherlands and a co-author of “Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch” (2012).

Although live-aboard boats and then houseboats have existed for centuries, the modern floating house is a relatively recent invention, with new materials and methods allowing for full-height construction without the loss of stability or the risk of intruding moisture.

The buildings are constructed on a floating foundation (sometimes stabilized by fixed stilts), which makes them flood-proof, affordable and independent of expensive real estate, although obtaining building permits can be tricky.

Perhaps most important for the slums of Dhaka, the units — which can house amenities like internet terminals, toilets and showers, large-scale water filtration, medical clinics, community kitchens and workshops — can be moved easily to where they are needed most.

 

Koen Olthuis CreditWaterstudio.nl

“If I were to build only floating islands for the wealthy, I would only make 150 happy people in the next 20 years,” said Mr. Olthuis, 45, who is the grandson of both an architect and a shipbuilder. “If we use this technology also to upgrade slums, we can change the lives of millions.”

As for most of Waterstudio’s other clients, the top draws are the crisp, elegant and open designs, the water views, and — for those with pockets deep enough — the optional private beaches.

The first units of his high-end Oceana project in Dubai are to be delivered next summer. For the project, Mr. Olthuis and Dutch Docklands, the development firm he co-owns, are designing and building 33 islands of 11,000 square feet that support custom-built villas of up to 5,500 square feet each, at an estimated total project cost of $170 million.

The villas themselves resemble smaller houses he has designed in the Netherlands. With open spaces and barely-there transitions between the indoors and the outdoors, his designs are airy, light and modern. The undersides of the islands are equipped with anchor points for marine life that resemble holds on artificial climbing walls, leading to a collaboration with Ocean Futures Society, established by Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of the explorer Jacques Cousteau.

Christie’s real estate, which is acting as a broker for the units, notes that they can be transported around the globe. Depending on the level of customization and enhancements, the islands will sell for an estimated $5 million.

A rendering of City App, a floating cargo container that can be used to deliver essential services to areas in crisis. CreditWaterstudio.nl
For those on a tighter budget, Mr. Olthuis is set to help reconvert on-the-water living spaces in Weehawken, N.J., just south of the Lincoln Tunnel, on the Hudson River. The first phase of the project focuses on “livable yachts,” which are scheduled to go on the market late next year for slightly less than nearby condos, according to Steve Israel, the developer.

In Bangladesh, the City App aims to bring services to the most affected areas of a large and flood-prone slum. It is the first time Mr. Olthuis has brought his ideas to bear in development work and is almost entirely funded by a foundation he set up that receives funding from Dutch partners.

The floating structure that will pioneer the program was built this year in a yard in Helmond in the south of the Netherlands, nearly 5,000 miles from Dhaka, and features two rows of computers and benches. Four other models are now being built to bring other urgently needed services to Dhaka, although none of the units will consist of actual dwellings.

While he is mostly known in design circles for his open glass constructions, Mr. Olthuis sees a broader mission. He is also an academic member of the flood resilience group at Unesco-IHE in Delft, a water research institute.

In his version of the future, cities will make better use of their water surfaces. In some cases, they will have no choice. Mr. Olthuis envisions public buildings like schools, stadiums and even parks being moved to different waterside neighborhoods according to need.

“In 20 years,” he said, “cities are going to be different than today.”

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Buoyant buildings: better than boats?

By P.Kennedy
Suffolk Construction’s Content 

Build smart
September.16.2016

 

With hurricane season at its peak, we explore how floating homes might help us adapt to bigger storms and rising seas.

The Dutch have a head start when it comes to dealing with water. The extreme weather events and rising sea level that scientists predict this century will affect millions around the globe—most of the world’s largest cities are along the coasts. But that problem has long been acute in the low-lying Netherlands, where two-thirds of the population live in flood-prone areas. Over the centuries, the Dutch have honed technologies—dikes, canals, and pumps—that keep their streets and houses dry.

Now, a new generation of Dutch engineers and architects is modeling another method. Rather than fight to keep water out, they say, why not live on it? The basic idea is not new—hundreds of free spirits live on traditional houseboats in quirky communities like Sausalito, California, and Key West, Florida. But in the Netherlands over the past few years, novel technologies have allowed developers to build roughly a thousand (and counting) stable, flat-bottomed, multi-story homes connected to land-based utilities yet designed to rise and fall with the tides and even floods. House boats, these ain’t.

And this is just the start. The Dutch are thinking bigger, and they’re exporting their floating-home vision worldwide, betting that the rest of us coastal clingers could use it. Some projects exist already, others are on the drawing board or coming soon. Let’s take a look at a few, from the workaday to the fantastical, and from overseas to right here in the States.

Photo by Roos Aldershoff, courtesy of Marlies Rohmer Architects and Urbanists

A “normal house” on water

The first of its kind, Waterbuurt (above and top) is a planned neighborhood of about 100 (eventually 165) floating houses in Amsterdam’s IJmeer Lake, part of a freshwater reservoir dammed off from the North Sea in the 1930s. Waterbuurt broke ground—er, water—in 2009, and was largely complete by 2014. Connected by jetties, the structures are three-story, 2,960-square-foot houses built of wood, aluminum, and glass.

And the foundations? Floating concrete tubs. Each house is designed to weigh 110 tons and displace 110 tons of water, which—as Archimedes could tell you—causes it to float. (The bottom floor is half submerged.) To prevent rocking in the waves, the house is fastened to two mooring posts—on diagonally opposite corners of the house—driven 20 feet into the lake bed. The posts are telescoping, allowing the house to rise and fall with the water level. Flexible pipes deliver electricity and plumbing.

Because any crack in the foundation tub could cause the house to sink, there can’t be any joints; builders pour the entire basement in one shot—much like the parking garage of the Jade Signaturecondo complex in Florida. In a facility 30 miles away from the IJmeer Lake site, crews use special buckets that pour 200 gallons per minute to finish all four walls and the floor in a single shift.

Just four months elapse before the entire house is built; then it’s towed by tugboat—30 miles through canals and locks—to the plot. The transportation is a major reason the houses cost about 10 percent more than an average home in Amsterdam, though they’re still aimed at the city’s middle class. The houses were designed by architect Marlies Rohmer, for developer Ontwikkelingscombinatie Waterbuurt West.

Photo by Marcel van der Berg

Once secured to its mooring posts, the structure is formally considered an immovable home, not a house boat. (Although owners have the option of naming their waterborne homes as sea captains do. One couple calls theirs La Scalota Grigia—Italian for “The Grey Box.”)

With high ceilings and straight angles, a house in Waterbuurt “feels like a normal house,” wrote a New York Times reporter who toured one. But some residents say they do feel their home swaying when the wind kicks up.

One other drawback, or at least challenge: Residents have to decide before the house is even built where they’re going to place furniture, because that will affect its balance. The walls are built to varying thickness, depending on the layout submitted. What if you inherit a beloved aunt’s piano after you move in? Or have another child and need to buy a bunkbed? To compensate, homeowners can install balance tanks on the exterior or Styrofoam in the cellar, or carefully move furniture around or even deploy sand bags. A bit of a hassle, but perhaps with an eye on rising sea levels, that’s a risk Amsterdammers are willing to take.

Rendering courtesy of architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL, and developer Dutch Docklands

Living large on a lake

At the luxury end of the market, there’s Citadel, which aims to be the world’s first floating apartment complex. Construction began in 2014. Citadel uses the same technology as Waterbuurt—floating concrete base, mooring pistons—but on a larger scale, in the sense that this will be one massive deck supporting a multifaceted apartment building, rather than a place for many individual houses to dock. Think of it as Waterbuurt with butlers. (And underwater parking and other amenities).

Citadel was designed by pioneering architect Koen Olthuis’ Waterstudio in partnership with master developer Dutch Docklands. The concrete caisson foundation will measure 240 by 420 by 9 feet, supporting 60 sleek, aluminum-clad apartments in an irregular arrangement that from the air will look a bit like a scattering of stacks of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Palm trees will sprout from courtyards. Green roofs are planned, and the developer hopes to have Citadel use 25 percent less energy than a similarly-sized complex on land.

One thing remarkable about Citadel is the body of water it will float in: a lake that doesn’t exist yet, though it did once. Construction is taking place in a polder, one of the Netherlands’ many low-lying areas that is only dry because pumps work 24-7 to keep the water out. Once construction is complete, the pumps will shut off, and the area will be re-flooded, to 12 feet deep. Eventually, Dutch Docklands plans to build five more complexes in the same un-manmade lake, dubbed New Water.

Rendering courtesy of architect Koen Olthuis, Waterstudio.NL, and developer Dutch Dockland

Exporting the vision

This is all well and good for the Dutch, but what about the flat, flood-prone coastal regions here in the USA? Like, for example, Florida? Well, the Dutch have thought of that. Another Waterstudio-Docklands project is Amillarah Floating Private Islands Miami, located in Maule Lake. A former limestone rock quarry, the privately owned lake is an inlet a mile and a half from the ocean, a bit north of Miami Beach.

Dubbed a “villa flotilla” by the Miami Herald, the complex will consist of 29 6,000-square-foot condos priced at $12.5 million each. As with Citadel and other Dutch Docklands projects, there are plans to boost the Maule Lake project’s sustainability, in this case with solar and hydrogen-powered generators.

Though similar to Citadel in the Netherlands, this project wouldn’t have been possible Stateside without a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that floating homes could be considered real estate, not boats. As the Herald explained, would-be buyers of Amillarah condos can get a mortgage and homeowners’ insurance, and the Coast Guard can’t bust in and inspect for life jackets.

Maule Lake will be out of reach for most Floridians financially, but if the ambitious project succeeds, it will provide visual evidence to Miami that floating houses can be done, and perhaps inspire larger, more modest developments like Amsterdam’s Waterbuurt.

Renderings courtesy of architect Brian Healy

Not hidebound in the Hub

In Boston, architect Brian Healy, for the local office of Perkins+Will, won awards in 2013 for his design of Floatyard, a proposed apartment complex that would stretch out onto the Mystic River from the Charlestown Navy Yard, using much of the same technology as the abovementioned Dutch initiatives. Were Floatyard and similar projects to become reality here, Healy argues that they would not only help the city adapt to rising seas but also revitalize disused shipyards (for example, in East Boston and Quincy) and reorient Boston—historically a seaport—toward its natural center, the harbor.

What makes Floatyard unique is its central courtyard: a floating wetland island, built above the foundation, to be seeded with native marsh grass and aquatic wildlife. The design also includes a plan to harvest tidal energy via the structure’s mooring post pistons.

Elder statesman of architecture criticism Robert Campbell could have been talking about any of the above floating buildings when he wrote of Floatyard: “Like a lot of good ideas, this one is just crazy enough to make sense.” Given the prediction for the ocean to rise between three and five feet by the year 2100, it might be more crazy not to build on floating tubs.

 

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