Floating Apartment Complex Takes the Worry Out of Rising Seas
There are two ways to react to global warming: you can fear it, or you can embrace it. Architect Koen Olthuis of Dutch design firm Waterstudio chooses the latter. His Citadel apartment building, part of a larger water-management development project called New Water in the Netherlands, is the first floating apartment complex in the world. The Dutch are uniquely accustomed to dealing with fluctuating water levels; much of the Netherlands is below sea level, and vast swaths of land, known as polders, are continually pumped free of the accumulating rainwater that threatens nearby homes and buildings. The Citadel will simply rise and fall with the changing water levels, making it impervious to flooding, tides, and sea waters inching upward as a result of global warming. Built atop a floating heavy concrete foundation, The Citadel will house 60 luxury apartments, a parking garage, a floating roadway, and...