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Amphibious Architecture
There are 37 houses strung along this branch of the Maas like a row of beads. At first glance, they seem quite unremarkable. Two storey high, semicircular metal roofs and yellow, green or blue facades - hardly any clues let on that these are The Netherlands' first amphibious houses. Each house is made of lightweight wood, and the concrete base is hollow. With no foundations anchored in the earth, the structure rests on the ground. This hollow foundation of each house works in the same way as the hull of a ship, buoying the structure up above water. To prevent the swimming houses from floating away, they slide up two broad steel 15-foot-long mooring posts with sliding rings - and as the water level sinks, so they sink back down again. All the electrical cables, water and sewage flow through flexible pipes inside the mooring piles.
"The columns have been driven deep into solid ground," explains Dick van Gooswilligen from the Dura Vermeer construction company. "They are even strong enough to withstand currents you would find on the open seas. As global warming causes the sea level to rise, this is the solution. Housing of this type is the future for the delta regions of the world, the ones which face the greatest danger."
Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1189
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