Floating Communities

Floating communities--comprised of floating homes and other liveaboards--already thrive around the world from Sausalito to Bangkok, from Amsterdam to Hong Kong. Floating communities provide many benefits, including:

• Moderately cost housing
• Minimal ecological footprint
• Adapts to rising tides

Moderately cost Housing

Floating homes offer a unique form of moderately priced housing. The value of the property on which this type of housing sits is often much lower as alternates uses is minimal. Floating homes, which often use concrete hulls, lend themselves to centralize production, as the house can be easily moved (via water) from one point to another. Retrofitting of used watercraft into liveboards often is used to drive the cost of housing even lower. The challenge comes when such communities are ad-hock and then grow with no basic infrastructure and building codes.

Goal: Provide a place where communities and their host cities can go to learn best practices and share know-how.

Minimal Footprint

Floating communities have a minimal ecological footprint as they do not require landfill for housing, garages, setbacks, yards, and additional roads and sidewalks. Be it wetlands, mudflats on a tidal plain or simple floating on a body of water, all can coexist with a little planning with a floating structure with little impact. Docks are either on floats or piers which again have little ecological impact. For larger communities, parking is centralized and shared. New green building techniques can be easily integrated as these structures often allow a greater range of construction techniques as they often fall under maritime law.

Goal: Share solutions and tools for building green floating communities.

Floating Communities and a Rising Tide

A significant portion of the worlds population is near water, with large sections of land just above sea level. If ocean sea levels rise in the coming decades then a simple choice has to be made: build walls or allow the water to come and adapt. Floating communities offer one means of adapting to this change. Simply, a rising tide floats all homes in these communities.

Goal: Educate policy makers on this unique form of adaptation to the rising tides caused by climate change.

Work in Progress - Stay Tuned

This site is just being created, so if you stumble across this site, your are more than welcome to check it out, but realize it is a work in progress. Thanks

Decide: Change or Adapt