ecoboat

Loed Stolte is the winner in the competition by the muncipality of Delft to design a sustainable floating house for the Harnaschpolder. Loed Stolte’s design Sustainable Shell has its architectonic roots in the art of building ships. A ship hull, a wooden frame paneled with timber planks, is transformed into a shell that determines the main shape of the house. The continuous form makes the interior and exterior naturally merge into each other. An orthogonally outlined glass enclosure works as a geometrical counterpoint to the curved shell. Starting from the S-shaped spine, the house unfolds itself more and more to the water.
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Captain Santiago Ferro would like to fly you by water plane to a nice vacation in one of his eco-resorts floating on the Amazon or on Lake Tota in Colombia. But first he needs some help in working out his plans to use the energy from the sun and from the flowing water to create comfort in his eco-resorts. For the inhabitants of the Andes it would be a nice way generating income; a good alternative for growing coca. For the ecologically concerned tourist it would be an exceptional way to enjoy the beauty of the high waters in South America. (more…)

Thanks to the use of standard materials – which are composed in a nonstandard way by Waterarchitect Van Bueren – you can have an affordable houseboat. Twelve repeating wooden joists, placed on a 5 x 20 meter concrete hull, make up the construction. The roof and façade are created by 80 bulged windows, each one in its standard 2 x 1 meter rectangular frame. The elongated rectangular form – characteristic for a house boat – is emphasized by the repeating forms. The rounding adds a sense of spaciousness to the interior. The windows create comfortable diffuse lighting on both floors. Some windows are opaque or translucent to prevent too much heating. While most houseboats lack a garden, this one compensates well with two balconies, plus a large terrace, and wide stairs towards the water. The inside area totals to 180 square meters, encompassing 3 bedrooms and a generous kitchen. (more…)

Thanks to an innovative airlift and water ducting system, the TU Delft team came up with a design that may finally mean a kick-off in Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). The research of Berend Jan Kleute (MSc Offshore Engineering), George Dodoros (MSc Management of Technology), Jody Verpoort (MSc System Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management) and Yosef Safi Harb (MSc Aircraft Design) shows that OTEC is more attractive than the two main competing sustainable energy sources (wind and solar) for Curacao, one of the Islands of the Netherlands Antilles. Further on you can read which inovations may let their dOmeTEC design overcome the challenges of high technical riscs, substantial capital investments and significant environmental impact which have until now withheld commercial applications of OTEC. (more…)

Nomads of the 21st. Century

Floating Communities / Aquatecture of The Netherlands commissioned a design for the same Lusatian Lakelands competition which is mentioned in the article below. The commissioned architect Dennis Marsch designed a floating house for the nomads of the 21st century, the young professionals who can live of their laptop-work wherever their whims will take them. They are the designers, ICTspecialists, consultants and many others who don’t need a fixed place as a residence, and are eager to work under the circumstances of a permanent vacation. For them Aquatecture has created a housing solution which gives them shelter with modern comfort thanks to the application of state-of-the-art
ecological technologies. (more…)

IBA’s Mobile Floating Architecture Competition for the Lusatian Lakelands in Brandenburg (Germany) had also an entry from our Ecoboot friend and architect Anthony Lau. Anthony now works at an architectural practice in London called Tasou Associates and he designed the house with his colleagues Simon Graham and James Murray. Although not one of the winners of the competition, the design reached the final rounds of judging and we are proud to present their design as it shows a floating house that refers directly to the post industrial mining landscape. Their concept for the competition was to design an object that had both man made and natural qualities. They wanted the Mobile Floating Architecture (MFA) to be comfortable in a variety of environments and geographies, (more…)

Het Markermeer tussen Almere en Amsterdam is aangewezen als locatie voor drijvend bouwen door het ministerie voor Verkeer en Waterstaat. Staatssecretaris Huizinga faciliteert deze ontwikkeling door 1100 hectaren te reserveren voor Amsterdam, Almere en Lelystad. Dit is een belangrijke stap om drijvende verstedelijking mogelijk te maken. Ingenieursbureau DeltaSync gaf een reactie op deze ontwikkelingen in de Telegraaf, op nationale televisie en in verschillende radio programma’s.

> Bezoek het nieuwsartikel online

> Het nationaal Waterplan

Click “read more” or “lees meer” for English version. (more…)

Op Radio 1 behandelt BNN het belangrijkste nieuws in de uitzending BNN Today. Op vrijdag 14 november 2008 kwam in de sectie Todays Talent Bart van Bueren aan het woord. Bart ontving de Young Technical Professional Award voor het op gang brengen van drijvend bouwen in Nederland. Bart’s “kindje” is het ontwerp van een drijvend paviljoen dat aan Al Gore getoond werd toen deze de Rotterdam Climate Campus opende. Beluister de uitzending van 14 november hier; Todays Talent vind je tussen 1:32 en 1:40.
UPDATE: (In English) Also in November, Bart van Bueren’s design of a floating pavilion featured as the first English spoken item (after 7 minutes) in a Norwegian broadcast on handling the climate change. In this item a scale model of the floating pavilion is presented as part of the Rotterdam Climate Initiative. The same scale model was shown to Al Gore when he opened the Rotterdam Climate Campus and also at the Poznan climate conference.

During my visit this summer in the USA, I went to New Orleans for a couple of days. New Orleans has always been very well known for its lively music scene, its beautiful French (actually Spanish architecture) District, its rough harbour-image and its Cajun kitchen. Since 2005 New Orleans is well known for something else: Hurricane Katrina.

In august 2005 hurricane Katrina struck the coastline of Alabama en Louisiana. Great damage was done by the wind, but even more by the floods that were a result of the storm, and the fact that large parts of the city are below sea-level, behind the levees. 80% of New Orleans was flooded.
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The Cepholopod 1 is the result of the way of thinking of a designer/sculptor about floating houses. Ben Rigby’s design consists of three diamond-shapes meeting each other in the center triangular form. Because of the sharp edges, this form can easily absorp the energy of powerful waves. The Cepholopods energy comes mainly from solar panels installed on the houses, and from wind turbines which erect automatically from the deck in case of wind. At times of heavy weather the turbines can lower into the deck, completely flattening the deck, so that waves and wind can easily move across the Cepholopod. One Cepholopod provides space for 3 apartments. Each apartment has his own docking station for a small boat to get to the shore. The water can be pumped out of the docking stations, so that the boat won’t be damaged in case of heavy weather.