Amphibious Living: The First Floating Apartment Complex
Written by Beth Flanagan
If you can’t control your environment, adapt to it. Or better yet, move into a sweet floating apartment in the Netherlands. That’s where the New Water concept by Koen Olthuis comes in. Who wouldn’t want to live on soothing, rippling water in high-tech luxury with your own boat slip? Where do I sign up?
The development’s goal is to see the flooding that’s been plaguing the Netherlands forever with new eyes. Rather than avoid the natural weather process, this project dives right into it. The world’s first floating apartment complex, aptly named the Citadel, will be situated on below-sea level wetlands.
The Citadel will consist of 60 extravagant apartments with their own boat docks, personal garden terraces and views of the lake. There will also be a floating road for access to the apartments and a floating car lot. Eco-happy Citadel residents will see a 25% decrease in their energy bills due to the use of natural water cooling methods. Greenhouses will also be set up around the complex.
Aerial view:
The project will be constructed on a polder. Polders, which are built on drained marshes and protected with dikes, have a high risk of flooding. The Netherlands already has about 3,000 of these structures due to their very long history of reclamation of wetlands. And the country’s situation is unique – half of all polders within northwest Europe are located in the Netherlands. Protecting the surrounding dikes is essentially a religion to the Dutch, seeing as the dikes protect their homes and other buildings from flood damage. The New Water project has plans to build other floating buildings nearby. They will rise and fall side-by-side with the Citadel, purposely allowing the polder to flood.
How it’s Made
The floating platform will be made from heavy concrete caisson. Exterior building walls will be covered with aluminum siding and the units themselves will be prefabs.
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Oh! Being a sea lover, I can understand why this project would be so popular. Though, the contradiction for me, is that it surely will have a negative effect to the natural order of the life underwater.