The Amphibious House

 We are pleased to announce that we have secured full planning permission for the UK’s first amphibious house that will be built on the banks of the River Thames later this year.

An amphibious house is a building that rests on the ground on fixed foundations but, whenever a flood occurs, the entire building rises up in its dock and floats there, buoyed by the floodwater. The Local Authority and Environment Agency supported this proposal because it was a replacement dwelling so flood risk was reduced on this site.

Commenting on the proposals, Baca Director Richard Coutts said:

‘A resilient city must be adaptable and to be adaptable the built environment must innovate. Our research work with climate change through the LifE (Long-term Initiatives For Flood-Risk Environments) Project for Defra and more recently the CAN (Climate Adaptive Neighbourhooods) for the Technology Strategy Board has allowed us to transfer and share knowledge with many academics, engineers and professionals in the field to develop best practice approaches and technologies. Amphibious design is one of a host of solutions that can enable residents to live safely and to adapt to the challenges of climate change and we are very much looking forward to constructing the first example of this approach in the UK.’

The project has recently been published in CNN. Read the article here

Grand Designs Live London will host a seminar on the Amphibious House on 9th May 2012. For tickets and information visit www.granddesignslive.com

Baca Architects have recently contributed to The World Bank‘s Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management for the 21st Century www.gfdrr.org/gfdrr/urbanfloods

The consultancy group was headed by GHK Consulting; Baca Architects, London; and the University of Wolverhampton’s School of Technology. Additionally the Books’s design concept was also developed by Baca Architects.

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