5 ms·

Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best. Diversifying housing styles seems like

by gleenn 6y ago

Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best. Diversifying housing styles seems like a good idea in general but the number of problems you get probably outweigh the benefits, like your house could sink, get blown away in a storm, where would you "dock" it to begin with, and how do you manage all the utility connections. Good luck to them but leaving my home firmly attached to earth thanks.

antonvs 6y ago
> Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best. Agreed. The houses in the article's pictures are in a city canal and docked. They're basically using urban real estate that happens to be covered in water. Locations where you can do that are a very small fraction of Earth's area. How this translates into using the 2/3rds of the world that's covered in water doesn't seem to be something they've really addressed.
- brnt 6y ago
  Most of humanity lives near coasts and rivers. The idea of these houses is that they're flooding resistant: they just move up and down with changing water levels. They're well anchored, but indeed utility connection are a weak spot, perhaps modulated by having solar panels. In either case, they obviate the need for precise and expensive regional water table control, for which the Netherlands is famous. That kind of control isn't a feasible solution for many countries, whereas floating houses would be. I'm not sure these houses are the answer though, but perhaps they'll come with some other answers to questions related to living in this way.
- jmiskovic 6y ago
  Sure, floating houses in middle of ocean is awful idea. But one can imagine some habitats that could work in lakes and calmer seas and this could be important step. First learn which materials work over long periods, achieve structural stability, and solve numerous other practical matters in safe environment. It is easier to iterate and failure is less expensive. I have bigger problem with sticking the open source label when all they share is couple of email addresses.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
People have been living on docked boats in the Netherlands for very long. Lots of cities have old barges with students living on them. Some of these are very old. Going circular here opens up a lot more areas to habitation as you need less infrastructure to make it work. Those old house boats have electricity, water, sewage, and gas connections. You don't need any of that if you can do everything on site. You are floating in water. All you need to do to use it is filter it. For waste water, you need to clean it up before you release it back to where it came from. Most of the tap water in Amsterdam comes from the water that surrounds it in any case. For energy, solar, wind, and batteries should go a long way. The main thing you need is enough square meters for the panels. 50KW should go a long way even on very cloudy winter days. If you insulate the houses/boats properly (i.e. lower your energy needs) it barely needs any heating or cooling. Also, you are floating in water, which makes heat exchange pumps really easy (no need to dig in the ground). Lots of nice engineering problems to solve there. Phone/internet can be wireless these days 4G/5G, or space link. There is no need for gas if you heat & cook electric. This looks like it still uses some shared infrastructure (probably for cost/efficiency reasons) but you could feasibly design something that is completely self sufficient. The key thing is to make durable structures that don't need a lot of maintenance, that are energy efficient, etc. As for the other risks. Boats sink occasionally but rarely when they are safely docked in a harbor. You obviously don't want to dock in a place that has currents, large waves, etc. There are plenty of secluded lakes, channels, etc. that should be perfectly fine for this.
- bluGill 6y ago
  > There are plenty of secluded lakes, channels, etc. that should be perfectly fine for this. No there are not plenty. Sure 70% of the earth is covered in water, but only 2.5% is freshwater, and a fair amount of that is lakes large enough to have currents and large waves as well (I don't know how to figure out how much is stable enough that you could consider living on a boat there. I think we can estimate that 2% of the earth is the type of place where you could consider living in a boat - and much of that isn't a place where you want to live (ie not a city), and the rest needs to a lot of land reserved for shipping lanes. Living in a boat is an interesting niche that a few people can do. However it isn't a solution for any housing problem.
m463 6y ago
I think a more interesting thought might be - many if not most cities have been built next to water, and now the purpose of the water has disappeared. Since the rise of container shipping, lots of city infrastructure near the water has been made obsolete. Loading docks, warehouses, manufacturing and all the rest have been replaced. Now you have a container parking lot and a gantry usually in a cheaper location with uncongested rail and freeway access, which is no longer directly in an urban center. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Effects "This fundamental transformation of where warehouse work was performed freed up valuable waterfront real estate near the central business districts of port cities around the world for redevelopment and led to a plethora of waterfront revitalization projects (such as warehouse districts)."
KaiserPro 6y ago
If you're in the lowlands, then the risk of flooding during a storm is most definitely non-zero. In the UK, developers have been building on flood planes because the land is cheap. So a floating house just cuts out the middleman. In holland, people have been living on barges for _years_. It's partly why I'd never swim in the canals in amsterdam, because those old barges discharge effluent. However hooking up utilities is trivial, pipes are bendy, and moorings are mostly fixed. The advantage of floating houses in this instance is the portability. Not only can a house be built at a factory and moved, reducing price. But if the mooring terms and conditions are terrible, one can move.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > because those old barges discharge effluent. No they don't. In 2008 the government decided that by 2018 all houseboats/barges/other boats that people live on had to be connected to the sewage system. It's possible that there are still a few stragglers but as a rule they don't.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    Aha! I haven't lived there since 2005 so my information is out of date
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      No problem. I haven't lived in Amsterdam since the 80's but I do occasionally visit and the effect has been quite noticeable when walking along the canals, especially on summer days.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best that's strained for sure, but it does follow that it is a good idea to solve the problem of building housing on water that solves the attendant problems.

by gleenn 6y ago

antonvs 6y ago

> Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best. Agreed. The houses in the article's pictures are in a city canal and docked. They're basically using urban real estate that happens to be covered in water. Locations where you can do that are a very small fraction of Earth's area. How this translates into using the 2/3rds of the world that's covered in water doesn't seem to be something they've really addressed.

brnt 6y ago
Most of humanity lives near coasts and rivers. The idea of these houses is that they're flooding resistant: they just move up and down with changing water levels. They're well anchored, but indeed utility connection are a weak spot, perhaps modulated by having solar panels. In either case, they obviate the need for precise and expensive regional water table control, for which the Netherlands is famous. That kind of control isn't a feasible solution for many countries, whereas floating houses would be. I'm not sure these houses are the answer though, but perhaps they'll come with some other answers to questions related to living in this way.
jmiskovic 6y ago
Sure, floating houses in middle of ocean is awful idea. But one can imagine some habitats that could work in lakes and calmer seas and this could be important step. First learn which materials work over long periods, achieve structural stability, and solve numerous other practical matters in safe environment. It is easier to iterate and failure is less expensive. I have bigger problem with sticking the open source label when all they share is couple of email addresses.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

People have been living on docked boats in the Netherlands for very long. Lots of cities have old barges with students living on them. Some of these are very old. Going circular here opens up a lot more areas to habitation as you need less infrastructure to make it work. Those old house boats have electricity, water, sewage, and gas connections. You don't need any of that if you can do everything on site. You are floating in water. All you need to do to use it is filter it. For waste water, you need to clean it up before you release it back to where it came from. Most of the tap water in Amsterdam comes from the water that surrounds it in any case. For energy, solar, wind, and batteries should go a long way. The main thing you need is enough square meters for the panels. 50KW should go a long way even on very cloudy winter days. If you insulate the houses/boats properly (i.e. lower your energy needs) it barely needs any heating or cooling. Also, you are floating in water, which makes heat exchange pumps really easy (no need to dig in the ground). Lots of nice engineering problems to solve there. Phone/internet can be wireless these days 4G/5G, or space link. There is no need for gas if you heat & cook electric. This looks like it still uses some shared infrastructure (probably for cost/efficiency reasons) but you could feasibly design something that is completely self sufficient. The key thing is to make durable structures that don't need a lot of maintenance, that are energy efficient, etc. As for the other risks. Boats sink occasionally but rarely when they are safely docked in a harbor. You obviously don't want to dock in a place that has currents, large waves, etc. There are plenty of secluded lakes, channels, etc. that should be perfectly fine for this.

bluGill 6y ago
> There are plenty of secluded lakes, channels, etc. that should be perfectly fine for this. No there are not plenty. Sure 70% of the earth is covered in water, but only 2.5% is freshwater, and a fair amount of that is lakes large enough to have currents and large waves as well (I don't know how to figure out how much is stable enough that you could consider living on a boat there. I think we can estimate that 2% of the earth is the type of place where you could consider living in a boat - and much of that isn't a place where you want to live (ie not a city), and the rest needs to a lot of land reserved for shipping lanes. Living in a boat is an interesting niche that a few people can do. However it isn't a solution for any housing problem.

m463 6y ago

I think a more interesting thought might be - many if not most cities have been built next to water, and now the purpose of the water has disappeared. Since the rise of container shipping, lots of city infrastructure near the water has been made obsolete. Loading docks, warehouses, manufacturing and all the rest have been replaced. Now you have a container parking lot and a gantry usually in a cheaper location with uncongested rail and freeway access, which is no longer directly in an urban center. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Effects "This fundamental transformation of where warehouse work was performed freed up valuable waterfront real estate near the central business districts of port cities around the world for redevelopment and led to a plethora of waterfront revitalization projects (such as warehouse districts)."

KaiserPro 6y ago

If you're in the lowlands, then the risk of flooding during a storm is most definitely non-zero. In the UK, developers have been building on flood planes because the land is cheap. So a floating house just cuts out the middleman. In holland, people have been living on barges for _years_. It's partly why I'd never swim in the canals in amsterdam, because those old barges discharge effluent. However hooking up utilities is trivial, pipes are bendy, and moorings are mostly fixed. The advantage of floating houses in this instance is the portability. Not only can a house be built at a factory and moved, reducing price. But if the mooring terms and conditions are terrible, one can move.

jacquesm 6y ago
> because those old barges discharge effluent. No they don't. In 2008 the government decided that by 2018 all houseboats/barges/other boats that people live on had to be connected to the sewage system. It's possible that there are still a few stragglers but as a rule they don't.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  Aha! I haven't lived there since 2005 so my information is out of date
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    No problem. I haven't lived in Amsterdam since the 80's but I do occasionally visit and the effect has been quite noticeable when walking along the canals, especially on summer days.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>Their argument that 2/3rds the world is covered in water means it's a good place to build houses seems strained at best that's strained for sure, but it does follow that it is a good idea to solve the problem of building housing on water that solves the attendant problems.