My Buoyant House

This is a competition entry which was intended for the Ecohouse Competition 2009 which i later decided to put it up for the Northern Design Award 09 and the Future Vision Award. The idea is to create a sustainable domestic house with a vision of inevitable flood in the near future, a concept to help flood refugees for the inconvenient truth.





PROBLEM+CONCEPT+VISION
This Buoyant House is designed in response to global warming, where the green house effect has been increasing at a very worrying rate. The rise of the Earth's temperature directly influence the rise of sea level due to the ice melting in the North and South pole. This design competition uses the city of York, UK as an exampe city. City of York has encountered many flooding problem and instead of building barriers to fight againts it, this house is designed to work with the flood.

Global warming is an inevitable cycle throughout Earth's development, but human contribution has lead to the increased of CO2 at catastrophic level. The International Scientific Scene assets that a temperature elevation of 1*C will lead to the water rising of 1 metre. A rise of 1 metre would bring ground losses emerged to approximately 0.05% in Uruguay, 1% in Egypt, 6% in Netherland, 17.5% in Bangladesh and 80% in the Atoll Majuro in Oceana. This rise of 1 metre would affect more than 50 million people. The rise of 2 metres would affect no less than 250 million who would become climate refugees. If all the ice on Iceland melts, the sea level would rise by 6 metres, a very worrying statement from the Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore. It is very suprising to see that the populations of the developed countries continue to rush on the littoral to build districts over there, house and buildings dedicated to a certain flood. For example, the Netherlands and the United Arabic of Emirates 'fatten' their beach with billions of Euro to build their short living polders and their protective dam for a decade.

DESIGN STRATEGY
The Buoyant House aims to prove that working with is better than working againts the rising sea level. The house is designed like any other family housing but with the capability to float with the rising water. It reacts like a boat with sustainable feature. The South facing facade which are mostly glazing, is fitted with a PV-TV glazing which can generate 3.8 Watts of elevtricity per square foot, an above average level of efficiency. As an external glazing, PV-TV allows 10%f sunlight to penetrate through as that level of light transmission is optimal to allow sufficient light in cloudy conditions whilst protecting againts excessive solar gain and ultraviolet ray. It can also provide good thermal insulation for the building. However, 1/5th of the glazing facade will be fitted with another type of solar panel glaze. This experimental panel involves embedding square spirals of conducting metal onto a plastic sheet which are referred as 'Nanoantenna'. The 'nanoantenna' absorbs infrared energy, which absorbed by the Earth and released even hours after the sun goes down. Hence the 'nanoantenna' would be capable of harvesting energy during the day and early evening, especially long summers.

Apart from sustaining itself with electricity, this house has been fitted with a Novaclear black water system which can produce 99.999% germ free water. This method has been introduced in a few countries such as Australia and will be soon in Europe. There would be many disagreement but the inevitable would happen sooner or later. All the wastewater from the house would go through an Aeration process which become drinkable water at the end. Passive heating and cooling is one of the principle design that has been incorporated into this building with large areas of glazing to the south and an atrium to provide heat stack effect, providing force ventilation into the building.

All of the services, I.E. kitchen and bathrooms have been fitted on the ground floor to make sure the centre of gravity is easily distributed around the house, allowing wide rooms on the first floor. A water tank for rainwater collecting has been fitted in the centre under the ground floor to act as a ballast to the whole house creating more balance. Circling the tank would be a hollow gap which acts as the floater. It would be constructed with no seams to provide the much needed strenght againts water pressure and impact. The hollow gap would provide the float, and the amount of float above ground is not restricted by poles that are normally attached to provide the height. With no restriction, it is capable of saving itself from the unknown amount of rise in sea level, the sudden surge of water such as the tsunami and is not affected by high and low tides. The back of the building is designed to infuse with the surrounding. On the ground it makes a good garden space and when it floats, it becomes a great sitting area to dip your feet in.

The long poles at the bottom of the house is to provide ground source heat pumps to the house. The concrete poles creates the foundation for the coil as the house afloat, the coil stays intact. As the house rises, the poles/coil will be expose to the water and the seasonal variations in the water temperature are likely to be greater than in the ground, but heat transfer rates can be high so overall efficiencies can be higher than for collectors buried in the ground.

For most of us, living on water would be a new approach and adapting to new things is a factor. With the rise of sea water, vegetation in most places would be killed by the salty water. However, having seaweeds and algae as a vegetation alternatives is a great option and its easily achievable with all the sea water around. It is a food for many countries and 10% of Japanese food intakes are seaweed. Not only can it act as food, but also medicine and fertilizer. As the house floats, wire meshes will be put between the walkway and becomes a personal floating garden for the residents. It does not only create food diversity, but also creates a floral habital community, making a huge contrast to the harsh bulky city environment.