Koen-Olthuis Archives - Page 15 of 40

Construction in progress Floating Duplex in Amsterdam

This floating duplex building designed by Waterstudio is now under construction. The images below show the progress. The building will be built up on land, later the whole element will be placed in the water and shipped to its location in Amsterdam. The images show perfectly the floating base and the superstructure. This floating structure will be cladded with different patterns of wood, as in a patchwork.

We will keep you updated!

Les projets de villes du futur les plus fous

By Par Jean-Luc Barberi et Laurent Martinet
L’Express
August.01.2018

Et s’il y avait d’autres façons d’habiter la planète Terre? Voici quelques projets, plus ou moins avancés!

Avec une population mondiale qui ne cesse de croître, et des villes qui vont devenir de plus en plus denses, il faut trouver de la place pour des humains qui se préoccupent de plus en plus de leur environnement. Au point qu’ils rêvent de vivre en pleine nature, sans rien perdre des bienfaits de la technologie… Une gageure que relèvent pourtant nombre d’architectes avec des projets plus ou moins utopistes. Certains sont déjà sortis de terre, d’autres n’existent que sous forme de dessins, mais tous ont en commun de vouloir réconcilier tech et développement durable. Exemples.

Sea Tree, la mégapole flottante

A nouveau la mer, mais sans larguer les amarres. Conçue par le cabinet d’architecture néerlandais Waterstudio, et encore dans les cartons, Sea Tree est une construction en forme d’arbre de mer destinée à flotter le long des côtes qui bordent les grandes métropoles, comme New York ou Rio de Janeiro.

Bâtie suivant les technologies des plateformes pétrolières offshore, flottante et arrimée par des câbles, cette structure entièrement végétalisée abrite aux côtés d’espaces laissés à la vie sauvage des potagers verticaux et des terrasses plantées destinées à l’alimentation des citadins. Les Sea Tree ont aussi pour rôle de capter les émissions de carbone des mégapoles. Elles seront des refuges pour les animaux utiles à la vie urbaine, comme les oiseaux, les abeilles ou les chauves-souris insectivores. Gagnées sur la mer, les Sea Tree – qui peuvent être construites en de multiples exemplaires – permettraient d’agrandir les espaces naturels et sauvages des métropoles existantes en s’affranchissant de la pression foncière.

L’ Express, 1 august 2018, Par Jean-Luc Barberi et Laurent Martinet

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Koen Olthuis speaks at Equinor

Koen Olthuis was one of the keynote speakers among other architects, engineers, urbanists and visionaries. Adressing his vision about the possibilities of Blue Cities, and the future of offshore structures.

Are Blue Cities a future of urban life?

By Evolve Arena & Björn Audunn Blöndal
Evolve arena
May.2018

The ocean might be the prime real estate of the future cities. This is what Equinor Innovation Team is set to explore in a series of expert workshops on the topic of floating cities.

The idea to explore Floating Cities at Evolve Arena in 2018 was initially brought by Anastasia Malafey, project leader at Evolve Arena in the meeting with Margaret Mistry, Strategy & Innovation projects leader at Equinor Innovation Team. Their common understanding that this can create new business applications and solve global urban development problem made them continue the dialog and turn discussion into action.

— For Equinor, the ocean space has been a massive source of value creation and competence building. Over the past 40 years, we have become the biggest offshore operator, we know marine operations, and we are a world leader on floating wind turbine farm market. Far from shore is where we feel close to home, says Anders Hegner Hærland, vice president at Equinor Innovation Team.

Is blue cities the future of urban life? — EQUINOR KICKSTARTED A SERIES OF EIGHT EXPERT WORKSHOPS WITH THE FUTURE OF FLOATING CITIES ON THE AGENDA. (PHOTO: BJÖRN AUDUNN BLÖNDAL/PRESSWORKS)

Equinor, formerly Statoil, have established Equinor Inovation Team to look into new business opportunities for the traditional oil and gas company. Its role is to explore and mature radical ideas and business model innovation. With a legacy stretching more than four decades back, Equinor, former Statoil, have drilled, built and run project both far out and deep into the sea. With high end skill, competence and a worldwide network of suppliers, Equinor is one of the companies most suited for being a major player in the arena of building the future of floating cities.

To kickstart a phase of exploration and learning Equior have invited companies, architects, engineers, urbanists and visionaries to a series of workshops. The workshops are facilitated by Xynteo and will be held in Equinors offices on Fornebu outside Oslo and other sites. The sessions are also live broadcasted to off-site participants.

— Building on our experience of the ocean as a commercial space, it still feels like a big step to the inspiring vision of Floating Cities. To most people, it might seem like a distant idea, but today major cities are running out of space to grow. Infrastructure is overloaded and quality of life for inhabitants diminished, Anders Hegner Hærland explains.

— The phase we are embarking on now is the exploration phase, says Margaret Mistry, Strategy & Innovation Projects Leader in Equinor Innovation Team.

— Evolve Team is grateful to see the high level of engagement and interest from Equinor Innovation Team, Xynteo and all partners involved. Now it is time for Equinor to step out of its comfort zone and become a spearhead and leading force toward new alternative applications of its competence and experience in solving major global challenges. We believe this explorational sessions and event at Evolve Arena give us unique opportunity to connect innovators, creative minds and industries and build clear momentum toward sustainable society, says Anastasia Malafey, project leader Evolve Arena.

— It’s an invitation to join us in exploring these possibilities together. Our conviction is that the technology, the commercial ideas, and the other ingredients for making floating cities a reality are within our grasp. But realizing them will require more than any one company can achieve alone. So we must begin with dialogue and collaboration, Margaret Mistry explains.

Floating cities represent a huge potential for urban development, food production, energy generation and minerals extraction on and under the water nearby coastal cities.

The first keynote speaker kickstarting the sessions is Koen Olthuis, visionary architect and CEO of Waterstudio, a dutch architectural firm that is set to develop solutions to the problems posed by urbanization and climate change. Olthuis compares the future of floating cities with smartphones populated with apps.

— Why can’t we use the cities like we use the smartphone? Why can’t we have floating buildings with different functions that we can move in and out as we need them — like floating city apps.

Olthuis elaborate how we can see projects as a service. Like for instance the Olympics, why do we build large stadiums and other facilities that is only used for a few weeks during the games? Why can’t we see expensive buildings like a floating stadium as a global asset that can be moved wherever the games are arranged? Qatar has already plans for renting huge cruise ships and connect them to a floating harbour and use them as hotels during the Olympic Games.

Blue Tech for Blue Cities
Building on water, done correctly, can also have huge environmental impact
Olthuis calls it blue tech for blue cities focusing on energy reduction, energy production and energy storage. As an example he mentions a breakwater project in New York that Waterstudio contributed in where huge rotating pillars serves both as breakwater, providing shelter and safe harbourage, as well as a dynamo, generating renewable energy.

Floating solar panels is another field of focus, as the global benefit of moveable panels would have enormous impact, and be of great value where electricity is needed.

Floating structures can also be beneficial for life at sea, both above and under the water. Olthuis have designed large steel structures based on existing offshore oil platforms. Built with layered floors with threes and plants above the water and aquatic plants under sea level, this can stimulate a wildlife oasis in urban areas.

— Oil companies have used these floating storage towers for years, we only gave them a new shape and function, Olthuis explaines.

To bring floating cities at scale we must move from pioneering, innovation and experimenting to standardization and regulations. At the same time we should take advantage of this phase of experimenting, because when things are standardized, the innovation will slow down, says Olthuis.

— Lack of regulation makes it simpler to experiment.

Olthuis emphasise that floating cities is not something that is happening in a science fiction future. Its happening now. There are several projects already in progress all over the world.

— Its not like we are building huge cities in the middle of the ocean. The first floating cities will be hybrid cities where part of the city is on the mainland and new facilities and functions are added on the water like an extension of the city. This kind of tech and mindset can change the structure of a city in a real short period of time.

In Desember Oslo will be the scene for a ground breaking exhibition and conference Evolve Arena on the theme of shaping the future of our cities. Equinor and Xynteo will host one of the side events workshops at the Evolve-conference.

— We will use the Evolve platform to host another creative work session with partners where we hope to emerge with a better understanding of where we can play a role and a unifying idea about the solutions that will bring affordable and viable floating cities a step closer to realisation, says Margaret Mistry.

Article deliver in collaboration with Björn Audunn Blöndal / PRESSWORKS

Cover picture: Floating harbor with cruice ships as temporary hotels by Koen Olthuis /WATERSTUDIO

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These Houses Have the Ultimate Water View

By Sam Lubell
The New York Times
May.24.2018
Photo credit: Credit Miquel Gonzalez

Floating villas in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, south of Rotterdam. Designed by Waterstudio.NL, the villas use heat exchange power and have extra-large foundations to create terraces and other outdoor spaces.

Few places in the world are as married to the water as Venice. Not only has the Floating City replaced streets with canals and land with islands, but its buildings also sit on wooden piles, driven into the ground deep below the water. Like much of the sea-hugging world, the city is also facing an existential threat as the waters rise and its ground sinks.

The city’s art and architecture Biennales (the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale starts on Saturday and runs through Nov. 11) have long reflected this simultaneously magical and dire condition, with exhibit after exhibit addressing sustainable architecture, climate change and rising seas.

Many have even drifted along Venice’s canals themselves, including Mike Bouchet’s (doomed) floating house; Croatia’s floating pavilion; Kunle Adeyemi’s floating school; Joana Vasconcelos’ floating artwork, Trafaria Praia; and Aldo Rossi’s floating Theater of the World.

As is so often the case, life is imitating art, and floating architecture is emerging as one of the built world’s most promising markets — for many of the reasons pinpointed at the Biennale.

“We see architects as spanning between infrastructural ideas and society,” said Yvonne Farrell, one of the Biennale’s directors, who posits that if architects can take a leading role on vital environmental issues through emerging technologies like floating buildings, then they can also help re-establish their primacy in the construction process.

“You cannot not deal with environmental issues if you’re an architect these days. It has to be an essential part of your value system,” added Shelley McNamara, who is also one of the directors. “We’re all connected. We have to find solutions where art and culture and industry can all find a way to survive.”

Architects, boat builders, developers and city planners worldwide are seizing on the opportunity as cities run out of space to build, tides continue to rise and demand for efficient construction spikes. They’re creating inventive designer homes and floating resorts, and even floating cities that can be prefabricated off site and simply floated into place.

“For many, floating is something new and adventurous,” said Max Funk, co-editor of “Rock the Boat: Boats, Cabins and Homes on the Water” (Gestalten, 2017). The book reveals an explosion of creativity in buoyant architecture, including an egg-shaped floating cabin in England, floating spas (with working saunas) in Finland and the United States, and floating geodesic domes in Slovenia.

“Having a floating home used to be something only for vacationers or the uber-wealthy,” Mr. Funk said. “Now more people are realizing they can do it. And with downsizing becoming a trend, it goes along with the idea that quality of life is more important than size.”

Claudius Schulze, whose floating art studio graces the cover of “Rock the Boat,” built his 32-foot-by-16-foot timber-sided box, coated in fiberglass resin, for about 20,000 euros (about $24,000) with the help of friends, including a structural engineer. It has state-of-the-art amenities like Wi-Fi, onboard water filtration and solar power. It has its own motor (technically making it a houseboat), and Mr. Schulze has used it in, and en route to, Amsterdam, Paris and Hamburg, Germany, mooring it in each location for about €200 a month.

“It really is the perfect studio space,” he said. “It has all the inspiration and little of the distraction.”

On Seattle’s Lake Union — which has hosted floating homes since the 1920s and now has more than 500 of them — William Donnelly has lived in a multilevel floating home designed by Vandeventer & Carlander architects for more than seven years.

“I enjoy smelling the water, hearing the water,” he said. “I love the idea that my home isn’t fixed to the land. It’s freeing.” It’s not all perfect — the lake is popular, and sometimes his tightly surrounded home feels like a fishbowl — but he said that he would never live on land again.

Thanks to such situations, and to the rise in the price of waterfront property, the market for floating architecture is growing in North America, said Allison Bethell, a real estate investor analyst at FitSmallBusiness.com. Newer homes and their slips are not cheap, but since the market is young and houses are limited in size, they are rarely as expensive as prime waterfront real estate.

Outside of Seattle, where houseboat construction is being curtailed because of the potential impact on local salmon populations, Ms. Bethell said, the most prominent areas in North America for floating homes are the San Francisco Bay Area; Vancouver, British Columbia; Key West, Fla.; and Portland, Ore.; where the number of floating homes has doubled since 2012.

The trend is also expanding rapidly in Asia and the Middle East, but it is furthest along in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, which is mostly below sea level. Estimates report that the country now has more than 10,000 floating residents, none more densely packed than in Ijburg, a growing development of floating homes clustered off man-made islands on the eastern edge of Amsterdam.

Over 50 of these residences — featured in the 2014 U.K. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale — were designed by Marlies Rohmer Architects & Urbanists and developed by Amsterdam-based Monteflore. The simple, industrial-inspired homes, floating on concrete bases (the current norm) were fabricated in a factory and floated into place.

“Most of the world now lives in cities, and most cities are near water,” said Ton van Namen, managing director of Monteflore. He said his team was working on a floating development along the west coast of Wales, and had been approached by interested parties from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates.

Koen Olthuis, an architect from the Netherlands who founded Waterstudio.NL, one of more than a dozen European firms specializing in boutique buoyant homes, sees floating architecture as the future. He said he had built more than 150 floating residences in the last 15 years, including a group of floating villas in Dordrecht, south of Rotterdam, that use heat exchange power and have extra-large foundations to create terraces and other outdoor spaces.

Now he is increasing his repertoire as both a designer and a planning consultant for floating hotels, restaurants, stores, resorts and private islands, and even floating cities.

“Blue cities,” as he calls them, can be more flexible and eclectic, and respond faster to rapidly changing demands from society and industry.

“I’ve talked to many urban planners, and they all say the same thing — by the time a city’s plan is finished, it’s no longer in line with society.”

He has consulted with officials in Rotterdam, the Maldives, Ivory Coast and Saudi Arabia, on flood-safe construction, smoother regulations for floating architecture, and how to float needed facilities, like a harbor, into place when needed. He envisions floating museums and factories shared by nearby cities.

“Once the elevator was invented, the whole recipe for a city changed,” Mr. Olthuis said. “Now a similar thing is happening on the water.”

The transformation of the typical floating building is, like most things in Dubai, going ahead full steam — thanks in large part to the Finnish company Admares, whose chief executive, Mikael Hedberg, started as a shipbuilder and now merges land and sea-based construction technologies.

Admares in 2016 completed the Burj Al Arab Terrace, a 2.3-acre island, attached to the sail-like Burj Al Arab tower, containing pools, cabanas, sun loungers, and a restaurant and bar. It was built in a factory in Rauma, Finland, floated into place in six pieces and then driven into the seabed via piles.

Besides location, what especially draws clients, Mr. Hedberg says, is the fact that since structures can be built off-site, on-site construction time is cut way down. The Burj Al Arab Terrace was set onto piles and welded together in about three months, subverting a landfill process that can take up to three years.

And unlike construction on landfill, floating buildings and islands create minimal ecological disturbance. Often floating platforms and piles, like those at the Terrace, serve as habitats and valuable cover for marine life.

The rise of floating design — and issues related to both rising tides and sinking cities — are having a clear impact on land, where designers and officials contend with water whether they like it or not. In many ways, floating buildings serve as laboratories for our new environmental reality.

Mr. Olthuis has helped create a development in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where “amphibious” homes — sitting on buoyant concrete bases and tethered to supports — can float in the event of flooding. (The Los Angeles firm Morphosis created a similar system for its modular, foam-cored Float House in flood-prone New Orleans.) He is also developing hybrid structures that can float on the water and, through a jack system, sit on land, making them even more flexible to personal and urban change.

“Land itself is no longer fixed in the way we’ve traditionally seen,” said Kristen Hall, an urban designer at Perkins & Will, which is incorporating water-reactive solutions for its new Mission Rock development at San Francisco’s Mission Bay, like pile-supported buildings, streets and sidewalks, and flexible utilities. “The question is, how much do you plan for change and roll with the change, and how much do you try to resist the change?”

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Rise of the Blue City

By Gif Im Focus

As an architect, you have designed floating structures and urban plans in relation to water. The Dutch have always fought against the water, but you are saying that we should rather live with the water. Your vision is that water will play a bigger role in the future of cities. So my first question is:

What is a city for you?
There are different ways of looking at a city. A sociologist will probably say a city is characterised by the way its citizens interact, and an ecologist would probably see the city as an environment with different habitats and species. As an architect, I see cities as a mix of three elements. Firstly, the specifics of the natural location, the DNA of the city. Secondly, the built-up environment, made up of buildings and infrastructure, i. e. the city’s hardware. And thirdly, the protocols,
which are a combination of the rules, regulations, traditions and culture of the community, which determine how the hardware in a city can be used.
All cities are not equal, and these three elements create a kind of balance or structure that determines the profile of a city. I think that the role of an architect should be to analyse city profiles, see their shortcomings and come up with new solutions of how to upgrade the performance of the city. This performance should
be measured in terms of how liveable the city is.

Can we not just grow further with the same system?
Today it is hard to imagine a city without revolutionary innovations that have become part of our normal lives, such as cars, electricity and the internet, which have all changed the profile of cities and the way we live. The introduction of electricity, mobility, lifts etc. has been a game changer, altering the functionality and liveability of cities. Steve Jobs said
in 1997: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” I think this also applies to urban innovation. We think that the concept of a city has reached its final stage, but we are just in a process of evolution. Urbanisation and climate change are having a great effect on the available space and put pressure on the capacity of urban functions in cities. Growing urban congestion, the rising cost of city housing and maintenance are only a few indicators of the difficulties static cities face in adapting to change. What I mean is that the demands of society change so fast that it is not possible for a city to respond immediately because of the nature of its static hardware. Its response time is too long.

How should we get ready for change?
Investments for the future must be made to keep cities running smoothly, but what if you do not know what tomorrow’s needs will be? Big investments in infrastructure can be useless tomorrow as technology changes the way we live or use space and facilities. The only way to resolve this dilemma is to start building for change. Charles Darwin said: “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Cities are living organisms, so they should change and create the potential to react to change. For this, they need to find space to grow, shorten response times and make rules and regulations more flexible so that new ideas can be adopted and implemented. Once an innovation has been adopted by a city and proven successful, it will eventually spread to other cities. The flexibility of its hardware and protocols will determine how long it takes for a city to adapt. The specific profile of a certain city could make implementation of new technology difficult. For example, it took Amsterdam 12 years to build one extra metro line in the mud. Compare that to building metro lines in solid ground in London, where the metro system was invented. To keep cities financially viable and maintain or improve their liveability, we should improve adaptability or start building for change, so to speak. Building for change can only work if you have a better idea of the needs of the city. The next revolution in cities will bring real-time interaction between the city and its users. This is the essence of a smart city. The smart city will change our cities from a stupid non-communicating structure to an interactive system that reacts to needs and data communicated by its inhabitants and users. A tailor-made system that will enhance efficiency and liveability. This leap in city evolution will make us look back in twenty years’ time and smile at the static, inefficient cities we used to live in.

What more can be done to keep our cities viable?
As viability depends on flexibility, and flexibility is in turn related to the availability of space, we need to look at cities through different eyes. We see built structures, but we should look at capacity and the extent to which functions are utilised. What I mean is that, if we could use buildings and functions more intensively, we would not necessarily need more buildings to respond to growing demand. There is an awful lot of dead space in the built environment of our cities. If you only look at how we use our homes. Many people have a spare room, kitchens are used for maybe 5 % of the day, bedrooms for 30 % and bathrooms for 10 %. Cars are used for 2 – 5 % of their lifespan and occupy parking spots for the other 95 %. Roads and power systems are designed to meet peak demand. We should use space more efficiently instead of having many functions that are only used for a small proportion of their capacity. The same applies to utilities, which produce more than we actually need for most of the time. To achieve this, we need to change the way we use these functions. By sharing space, making space more dynamic and using temporary spaces and functions, we could reduce the need for additional buildings. Instead of building more structures and raise density, I think we need to raise the efficiency of density.

Who will take the initiative in changing cities and raising the efficiency of density?
Upgrades of a city system will be initiated by existing players who control and provide services in a city. Revolutions and leaps mostly come the private sector. A new invention
can change the game and companies will build new business models around this. Examples we see everywhere include companies such as Uber and Airbnb, which have shaken up the existing static system of taxis and hotels, and both have already had an effect on the efficiency of density. There are more beds and cars available without building more hotels or cars. For the smart city revolution, we have to closely follow tech companies such as IBM, Samsung, Microsoft, Panasonic, Erikson and Google, all of which are looking for testbeds of smart technologies in existing cities.

So, what new leaps can we expect?
Almost all major cities have water in some shape or form. This water has not yet been “optimised” for adaptable city development. This is not because of lack of technology, but because it is held back by protocol restrictions. Every innovation starts with a small experiment before it is implemented on a larger scale. I think that water is the secret ingredient of a next leap in the evolution of cities. You can see small initiatives in cities like Amsterdam, Miami, Dubai, where water – or what we call blue space – is used for floating housing, restaurants, resorts and offices. These initial concepts show a glimpse of how blue space could be used. Once we can break through the regulatory obstacles, we can unlock new territory, improve efficiency and create new flexible developments. With the use of blue space, the tools available to architects to adapt cities will change. Functions can easily be added or relocated, whenever necessary, within a very short response time. No city profile is perfect, and every change in demand necessitates constant adjustments to the built environment and its protocols. The city can be tuned if a certain number of functionalities are flexible in terms of location, quantity and cost. A blue city can be tuned to become
high-performing and efficient at any time. We believe that water will be the secret ingredient in meeting the challenge of balancing constantly changing needs with the static capacity of city functions. Blue cities will be less constricted by the lifespans of urban components.

What will be the effect of more development space being available on water?
Today we see that prices of real estate in Amsterdam are booming and the affordability of housing is going down. This will eventually determine who can still afford to live in the city centre. Any initiative to turn this negative trend around would be welcomed by politicians, who want to make housing more affordable. Space owned by the municipality can deliver new revenues for the community. A blue profile can loosen the grip developers have on land prices. For cities, the new credo will be “the wetter the better”. The unique opportunities and facilities, such as flexibility, space and safety, that water can add to the urban landscape will turn blue space into the new gold. Based on this assumption, we can determine which cities hold large bodies of water near the centre and predict their willingness and ability to adapt their protocols (rules and regulations) in order to make floating
developments possible and thus create opportunities for these cities to improve their performance. I think we may soon see the first signs of the rise of the blue city.

What kinds of new concepts will a blue city have in store for us in the future?
The evolution of new blue city models, in which cities take advantage of water to upgrade, will happen in small steps. With water as an additional tool in urban planning, the rules of the game will change. Projects will not necessarily remain static, as some of the products can be placed on water. They can then be relocated and reused in other locations. Functions are no longer limited to the functional lifespan of a particular place in town, but will be determined by their technical lifespan, located on water inside or outside the city. For example, a floating school or floating sports facilities can move with the neighbourhood’s needs for those functions. Buildings will interact better with the climate of a city. It is strange that many architects still build houses that are the same for severe winter conditions and for hot summers. I think we will have seasonal houses and neighbourhoods in the future, which will change their configuration and identity along with the changing seasons. Another new concept is “meantime” cities where neighbourhoods or functions can be placed in a location. They then have to make space for new uses when their economic value no longer matches the needs of the location. This means you will be able to make space for new developments in the centre of the city without having to demolish buildings that are still functional. You just replace, re-use and re-organise to suit your needs. A common feature will be city apps – small temporary floating functions that can meet a specific need or solve a specific problem in a location: temporary parking places, floating sports facilities for a big event or temporary floating affordable housing for students. As green space is under pressure in expanding cities, we will see green spaces appear in blue cities. Floating habitats, floating forests, floating parks can all have a positive effect on the environment of a city. There will also be greater interaction between cities. The rise of the blue city is not only about changing the type of hardware the city deploys but also about greater efficiency of two or more cities working together. The next step towards greater flexibility is the cooperation between cities that share protocols (rules and regulations) and mobile assets. It will be possible to build a floating museum and share it between cities. You will no longer have to go to a specific city to see a museum, but the museum will come to you. The sharing industry transcends products and services and enters the world of urban components. Blue city profiles will allow for joint ownership and an economy in which major city functions, facilities and components can be shared. Just a few decades ago, you would have been born in a specific city and worked, lived and died there. Today the young generation of millennials can choose the city that provides them with the best opportunities. As cities will be judged and compared on the basis of liveability, competition between them will increase. Cities need to upgrade their performance and branding in order to attract the best inhabitants. We could even see battles between cities in their attempts to lure potential millennials. Adaptable cities that take advantage of water will not only survive but also thrive!

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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

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How floating architecture could help save cities from rising seas

By Kate Baggaley
NBC
Apr.09.2018

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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Breaking the waves, ancient Greek-style

By Neos Kosmos
March.16.2018
photo Credits Waterstudio

Dutch-designed floating breakwater which doubles as an energy generator is modeled after the Parthenon

The Parthenon Seawall is a new suggestion for a floating breakwater which would protect harbours and coastlines from tidal force, turning it into electrical power.

In ancient Greek mythology, Olympian god Poseidon used his trident to master the sea; thousands of years later, the need to master the sea remains as pressing as ever and it is of little wonder that those facing the task looked to ancient Greece for inspiration. This is true of the innovative Netherlands-based architecture firm ‘Waterstudio’ led by Architect Koen Olthius and specialising in floating urban structures. The studio’s mission statement is “developing solutions to the problems posed by urbanization and climate change” and its latest creation, the Parthenon Seawall, is a floating breakwater that doubles as an energy generator, promises to do exactly that.

Waterstudio used New Yorks Hudson River to illustrate the Parthenon Seawall’s function.

As its name suggests, the Parthenon Seawall was designed to resemble the iconic temple of Athena, but despite its ancient esthetics, the structure’s columns have more to do with functionality and addressing specific needs in a modern-day urban setting. While normally breakwater structures are designed to disrupt waterflow and reduce the impact of waves, tides and currents, protecting coastlines, harbors and riverbeds from potential damage, the Parthenon Seawall goes a step – or more – further than just fighting the force of water – it lives with it and turns it into electrical power. The floating breakwater stems the crash of water pushing into a harbor, while at the same time harvesting the tremendous energy a wall of water like that can generate.

The Parthenon Seawall employs the “stacked pyramid” structure – the columns are comprised of cylinders that rotate – both clockwise and counter clockwise – at low speed, moving by the flow of water. The upper concrete platform is where the energy is stored, but Waterstudio designers suggest it can also be used as a riverfront, creating a space for greenery and recreation. Poseidon would be proud.

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Waterstudio published in “Floating Houses- Living over the water”

Floating Houses – Living over the water

Two projects of Waterstudio are published in the book “Floating Houses – Living over the water”.

Villa `Ijburg’ – plot 13

This design was done for an Amsterdam urban expansion site where one specific area was designated to have only floating houses. As with the other dwelling for this same area, limitations in the building outline were strict, forcing the design to be clear and powerful’ within these regulations. Pushing the regulations which only allowed half of the top storey to be used. This design quite literally took the complete rectangular outline of the building envelope as a frame in which transparent facades were placed. Within the frame the several functions were placed, defining where the glass paneling should be transparent or closed. The top storey still only occupies half of the floor surface, but the white frame now encloses the remaining outside terrace, visually completing the basic and almost austere volume. Within the frame, glass panels were used with several slightly different colours, adding some subtlety to the scheme.

The lower floor, which is partly beneath waterlevel. contains the bedroom, a bathroom with sauna, as well as some storage and a study-rooms. On the ground floor, where the entrance is situated, two blocks in the layout create an, entrance hallway, and close off the stairwell, leaving the rest of the surface almost completely open. The blocks contain the toilet, storage space, and kitchen equipment. The whole of the floor is used as a large living-kitchen. On the upper floor the volume containing the living-room was given a curved outline, which give a little playfulness to the otherwise I is geometric appearance.

Villa jjburg’ – plot 3

This plan was designed for an urban water-development area in Amsterdam. Strict limitations of the building envelope and 2,5 storeys,, while maximizing effective floor space for the principal, forced the designers to, come up with a strong architectural principle that organized the dwelling with only modest means. The location at the end of the pier, where the view should be focused on the water while shielding off the dwelling from adjacent houses, provided the initial starting point. The architectural concept comprises of two basic shapes, filled in with glass panels. The main volume is enveloped by a white stucco slab that runs along the le storey floor, covers the entire back wall and roof, forming a continuous line that frames the living area and the open view. This simple yet elegant shape is complemented by a second shape in wood formed by the terrace floor and curving up to form the banister. Together, these two simple gestures define a distinct, almost iconic appearance.

On the lower floor, which is partly below waterlevel, three bedrooms and the bathroom are situated. The ground floor is largely an open layout where only the toilet and some storage space separate the entrance area from the main space. Two large swinging doors can be used to close off the hallway. A neatly designed cupboard containing television is the only main element in the open space. Behind this, two stairs lead to the lower storey and to the working-area on the top floor. The ceiling of the living room is made in the same wood as the outside shape to really carry through the concept of the two curved shapes making up the dwelling.

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