Architects Design a Concept Home Built to Rise Above Floods

As climate change takes its toll on sea levels and weather patterns, people who live near bodies of water will have to reckon with the likely event that, at some point, their houses could flood. Architects are already planning for this possibility, rethinking where they place electrical equipment, building boardwalks that protect the shoreline from incoming tides, and designing houses that can stay above rising waters.

Berkeley-based firm Terry & Terry Architecture proposes that when flooding becomes commonplace, people could live in housing equipped with retractable legs. As reported by Curbed, the Tidal House would be able to float above the surface of the water in the event of a flood, and be anchored to the ground far below. It would also be solar powered, so you wouldn’t have to be worry about a failing electrical grid. (Hurricane Sandy, for example, knocked out power to 8.1 million homes.)

Designed specifically for a presentation at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Tidal House will probably never be built. Still, it’s a glimpse of what the future might hold for coastal homeowners.

[h/t Curbed]

All images courtesy Terry &Terry Architecture via Inhabitat.

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