This Friday’s Museum of Possibilities offers some unusual architectural designs for buildings located in flood-prone zones, such as low-lying areas along the Gulf Coast. Ideally, regions that are below sea level, prone to hurricanes and storm surges, or vulnerable to levee breaks should be left in a natural state and undeveloped. But that’s not about to happen!
If my designs are seen as over-the-top wacky, they are nonetheless call attention to a serious question of how to design buildings that survive serious flooding of the sort that occurred in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans in late 2005. In the future, home power will increasingly move away from an externally-sourced grid of pipes and wires, toward on-site-generated systems. At that time, some of my proposed buildings could remain partially underwater while still supplying residents with their own power. Sewage and water would need to be handled as for a large motor home. Until that day arrives, some of my concepts like Ring Toss Homes leave unaddressed the matter of utility services that are underwater during a flood.
(Image credit: FEMA)
Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.
I think these are much more reasonable concepts than our ongoing and ever increasing obsession with building cities and towns in areas that are below sea-level.