First Amphibious House in the UK

Image credit: Baca Architects & Waterstudio

Here’s a thought for anyone looking at building a house in Melbourne’s leafy Elwood or any number of Sydney’s bayside suburbs – which can get a bit waterlogged when it rains – an amphibious house. No, it’s not a house with a built-in snorkel, but it can happily live on either land or water. The idea is not new of course; the general concept of a house that can float up and down with the tides has been used in Amsterdam for quite some time now (although those houses are usually on the water to start with). 

Anyway, the UK has started to catch on with their first amphibious house nearing completion on the banks of the River Thames. It’s a great design response for properties subject to flooding, it’s smarter than elevating the floor level above an arbitrary flood level (which can change over time anyway), it’s practical and it actually looks great.

Our only question is, how do you leave your house on the odd occasion when it’s surrounded by water? Do you just wait until the water subsides or should it come with a dinghy?


Check out all the images of Baca Architects’ design.

Read more here.