|
 Hidden under the house and its wraparound porch are steel pontoons
filled with Styrofoam. These can lift the structure three meters off
the ground if this area, two hours north of Bangkok, floods as it
did in 2011 when two-thirds of the country was inundated, affecting
a fifth of its 67 million people.
The 2.8 million baht ($86,000) amphibious house in Ban Sang village
is one way architects, developers and governments around the world
are brainstorming solutions as climate change brews storms, floods
and rising sea levels that threaten communities in low-lying coastal
cities.
"We can try to build walls to keep the water out, but that might not
be a sustainable permanent solution," said architect Chuta
Sinthuphan of Site-Specific Co. Ltd, the firm that designed and
built the house for Thailand's National Housing Authority.
"It's better not to fight nature, but to work with nature, and
amphibious architecture is one answer," said Chuta, who is
organizing the first international conference on amphibious
architecture in Bangkok in late August.
Asia is the region most affected by disasters, with 714,000 deaths
from natural disasters between 2004 and 2013 - more than triple the
previous decade - and economic losses topping $560 billion,
according to the United Nations.
Some 2.1 billion people live in the region's fast-growing cities and
towns, and many of these urban areas are located in vulnerable
low-lying coastal areas and river deltas, with the poorest and most
marginalized communities often waterlogged year-round.
For Thailand, which endures annual floods during its monsoon season,
the worsening flood risks became clear in 2011 as panicked Bangkok
residents rushed to sandbag and build retaining walls to keep their
homes from flooding.
Vast parts of the capital – which is normally protected from the
seasonal floods – were hit, as were factories at enormous industrial
estates in nearby provinces such as Ayutthaya. Damage and losses
reached $50 billion, according to the World Bank.
And the situation is worsening. A 2013 World Bank-OECD study
forecast average global flood losses multiplying from $6 billion per
year in 2005 to $52 billion a year by 2050.
FLOATING HOUSE
In Thailand, as across the region, more and more construction
projects are returning to using traditional structures to deal with
floods, such as stilts and buildings on barges or rafts.
Bangkok is now taking bids for the construction of a 300-bed
hospital for the elderly that will be built four meters above the
ground, supported by a structure set on flood-prone land near shrimp
and sea-salt farms in the city's southernmost district on the Gulf
of Thailand, said Supachai Tantikom, an advisor to the governor.
For Thailand's National Housing Authority (NHA) – a state enterprise
that focuses on low-income housing – the 2011 floods reshaped the
agency's goals, and led to experiments in coping with more extreme
weather.
The amphibious house, built over a manmade hole that can be flooded,
was completed and tested in September 2013. The home rose 85 cm (2.8
feet) as the large dugout space under the house was filled with
water.
In August, construction is set to begin on another flood-resistant
project – a 3 million baht ($93,000) floating one-storey house on a
lake near Bangkok's main international airport.
"Right now we're testing this in order to understand the parameters.
Who knows? Maybe in the future there might be even more flooding...
and we would need to have permanent housing like this," said Thepa
Chansiri, director of the NHA's department of research and
development.
[to top of second column] |
The 100 square meter (1,000 square foot) floating house will be
anchored to the lakeshore, complete with electricity and
flexible-pipe plumbing.
Like the amphibious house, the floating house is an experiment for
the NHA to understand what construction materials work best and how
fast such housing could be built in the event of floods and
displacement.
FLOATING CITIES?
The projects in Thailand are a throwback to an era when Bangkok was
known as the Venice of the East, with canals that crisscrossed the
city serving as key transportation routes. At that time, most
residents lived on water or land that was regularly inundated.
"One of the best projects I've seen to cope with climate-related
disasters is Bangkok in 1850. The city was 90 percent on water -
living on barges on water," said Koen Olthuis, founder of
Waterstudio, a Dutch architecture and urban planning firm.
"There was no flood risk, there was no damage. The water came, the
houses moved up and down," he said by telephone from the
Netherlands.
Olthuis started Waterstudio in 2003 because he was frustrated that
the Dutch were building on land in a flood-prone country surrounded
by water, while people who lived in houseboats on the water in
Amsterdam "never had to worry about flooding".
His firm now trains people from around the world in techniques they
can adapt for their countries. It balances high-end projects in
Dubai and the Maldives with work in slums in countries such as
Bangladesh, Uganda and Indonesia.
One common solution for vulnerable communities has been to relocate
them to higher ground outside urban areas - but many people work in
the city and do not want to move.
Olthuis says the solution is to expand cities onto the water.
Waterstudio has designed a shipping container that floats on a
simple frame containing 15,000 plastic bottles. The structure can be
used as a school, bakery or Internet cafe.
Waterstudio's aim is to test these containers in Bangladesh slums,
giving communities flood-safe floating public structures that would
not take up land, interfere with municipal rules or threaten
landowners who don't want permanent new slums.
"Many cities worldwide have sold their land to developers... and now
when we go to them, we say, 'You don't have land anymore, but you
have water,'" Olthuis said. "If your community is affected by water,
the safest place to be is on the water."
(Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Laurie Goering)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
