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Adaptable and climate resilient modular living units on water in response to climate change.
Called Land on Water, the modular aquatic vision was designed by Copenhagen-based practice Danish Maritime Architecture Studio MAST with the support of Hubert Rhomberg and venture studio Fragile.
The modular floating architecture is in response to rising sea levels around the world.
The modular system consists of float-packed floating modules made of recycled reinforced plastic, in which the modules are configured to be transported and assembled anywhere in the world.
According to MAST, the modular system provides a much more promising solution for building housing or any infrastructure on the water – from floating houses in Seattle, to floating campsites at the centre of Oslo fjord, to saunas on Hobart’s riverfront.
“A growing acknowledgement of sea level rise and an increased risk of urban flooding has contributed to a sharp increase in interest in building on water but current solutions, including polystyrene filled concrete foundations and plastic pontoons are inflexible, difficult to transport and highly unsustainable,” said MAST in its project description.
“Land on Water promises an entirely new, sustainable and highly flexible solution.”
To create this system, MAST is inspired by gabion cage construction method, “an ancient technology utilises mesh cages filled with rubble to create extremely sturdy, low-cost foundations.
The studio inverted the same concept to form modular cages that can be filled with locally-sourced, upcycled floatation material supporting the weight of any structure built on top.
As MAST emphasised, this system has also a unique advantage. For instance, the floatation material can be added or adjusted at any time if weight is added above or if anything changes in the balance of the weight.
Since the current market system solutions propose other materials such as polystyrene filled concrete foundations and plastic pontoons, MAST believes that these systems are inflexible, difficult to transport and highly unsustainable to use.
According to MAST, the project “promises a climate resilient and adaptable solution for the construction of new floating buildings”, while it could also lead to an entirely new type of dynamic and organic off-grid floating community.
See: https://mast.dk/
