WaterWoven: Living on the margins in the Roncador River region

2022

Maria Ottoni

Informal settlements located on river edges in impoverished Brazilian urban peripheries have increasingly suffered from the effects of more intense urban floods. In the context of a degraded urban watershed, precariously inhabited by informal settlements, how can we promote a transformation toward a more sustainable way of living? How can we rehabilitate the river while also enhancing the community capacity to adapt to floods and improve their lives on a long-term basis? The Aquatecture approach, as a non-defensive nature-based solution, has great potential to restore the river’s environmental qualities, reduce floods and allow the city to work with water instead of controlling it.

Where the River Flows Fast

2011

Andrea Barei

Composed as a series of explorations into the physical and spiritual form of the flood prone First Nations community of Kashechewan, this thesis explores the factors that have contributed to the community’s decline and current state. By looking at how these factors influence built form, the principles, possibilities, and concepts that are latent within it are used to re-establish ways in which the people can view, value, and act upon the land to create lasting change.

The Lift House

2011

Prithula Prosun

Bangladesh is known for two things: poverty and floods. The LIFT (Low Income Flood-proof Technology) House is an affordable, flood-resilient housing solution for the low income families of Dhaka. The LIFT house consists of two amphibious structures that are capable of adapting to rising water levels. The amphibious structures float up on buoyant foundations during floods, and return to ground level when water recedes. It is a sustainable, environmentally friendly house that provides all basic services to its residents without connection to the city service systems, through the use of indigenous materials and local skills. 

Amphibious Architectures Part One

Amphibious Architectures Part Two

2010

Elizabeth Fenuta

This is a research-based thesis builds upon a study conducted with Dr. Elizabeth English on the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP). The BFP is currently developing an amphibious foundation system to retrofit vernacular wooden ‘shotgun’ houses in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The BFP system will allow homes to float when flooding occurs, rising and descending vertically to avoid flood damage. It provides an alternative solution to permanent static elevation, the mitigation strategy currently recommended by the United States federal government.