Building on water, a trend to pick up?

In Netherland, the specialist Dutch architect Koen Olthuis had already built in Amsterdam the water villas with floating foundations.

As Holland continued to struggle with overcrowding and due to the lower price of water of only 10 to 15 percent of land, Koen Olthuis looked to water as a place to build building on water, and underlined that this was not unlike building on land except that the foundations were floating.

In Holland, with the threat of flooding, the Dutch architect saw building on water as a safer alternative to regular housing. More, as the sea level is rising and there will have not enough space in the next 50 years, Koen Olthuis is now developing a floating island in the Maldives in ocean.

In Australia, according to the Director of ARM Architects in Melbourne Mark Raggatt, the proposals for building on water exist but currently only for swimming pool and not so much for houses. But one ethical question remains: shall the Australian be colonizing the very precious coastline, their last great wilderness?

By now, the Australian cost was always prohibitive, but that might not always be the case.