WHILE we seek to tackle the climate crisis, there are realities of the changing climate that we already need to live with. Sea levels have been rising at an accelerating pace, and the U.N. Secretary-General has warned that entire communities and countries could disappear in the coming decades as a result. The danger is especially acute for the 900 million or so people living in low-lying coastal zones.

Many of these vulnerable communities have already experienced devastating flooding. But instead of building seawalls to try and keep water out, or elevating homes on stilts, some architects are designing a future in which we live with water — and on it.

Proposals for entire “climate-resilient” floating cities (including an ambitious ocean settlement in South Korea and one large enough to house 20,000 people in the Maldives) have grabbed headlines. But existing projects, from Lagos to Rotterdam, are showing how life on water might look — and in ways that could be scaled up.

A new exhibition at the Dutch city’s Nieuwe Instituut, “Water Cities Rotterdam,” features the work of NLÉ, an architecture practice led by Kunlé Adeyemi that has been researching and testing floating architecture around the world. A series of floating pavilions, which evolved from the Amsterdam- and Lagos-based practice’s critically acclaimed Makoko Floating School project, sit in the museum’s ponds.

Makoko is a central district of Lagos, Nigeria, where thousands of people live in informal wooden structures built on stilts in the lagoon. Inspired by the settlement, Adeyemi built a school for its residents in 2012.

The triangular A-frame wooden school was accessible by boat, and included sheltered classrooms and a communal play space for dozens of children. Rather than standing on stilts, the structure floated on a base of plastic barrels. The school collapsed a few years later, although NLÉ clarified it was always intended to be temporary, while claiming that a lack of maintenance and collective management led to its deterioration.

Learning from this project and from ongoing research, Adeyemi’s practice went on to develop the Makoko Floating System (MFS), a group of sustainable timber structures that can be quickly assembled and disassembled where and when needed. The system is modular, with more efficient steel connections, and is highly engineered to meet European building codes.

The MFS comprises prefabricated, flat-pack parts that can be constructed by a team of five people in two weeks, without heavy equipment or cranes.

The system offers small, medium and large versions of the triangular A-frame structure. Adeyemi believes the MFS can be used for a variety of purposes, from housing to education, and is “a solution that can be applied globally.” He has constructed the system in various countries — including Italy, Belgium and China — in order to test it in different climatic and water conditions.

In 2021, the concept took semi-permanent root in Mindelo, a port city in Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, in the form of a floating “music hub.” Spread across three triangular wood and steel pavilions, the cultural center includes a performance space, bar, canteen and recording studio floating in the sea and connected to the shore via a walkway.

With 90% of the city lying below sea level, the sight of floating architecture is nothing new to Rotterdam. Examples from numerous design firms grappling with a watery future can be found throughout the city.

One project that completed this year, dubbed Nassauhaven, features 17 floating homes created by local firm Public Domain Architects (PDA). The design won a competition held by the city government to develop a floating architecture pilot project.

With its homes arranged in a neat row, the project is referred to as a “floating street.” The wooden homes sit on concrete pontoons attached by poles to the harbor floor — and by walkways to the land. They rise and fall gently with the daily tides, while remaining stable and comfortable for inhabitants. The buildings have been designed to be energy neutral, with sustainability features such as solar panels, biomass heating and onsite wastewater purification.

PDA is working on more floating projects, in Bangladesh as well as others in Rotterdam.

Adeyemi believes that, as yet, there has not been enough research into how we might build and live on water, which makes up 70% of the Earth’s surface. The work on show at the Nieuwe Instituut aims to start filling this gap in light of rising sea levels.

“In the near future, human civilization will live more on water,” he said. “Why fight water when you can learn to live with it?”  (SD-Agencies)