Eco Factor: Prefabricated home for Make It Right gets powered by solar energy.
The biggest question racking the minds of eco-conscious home designers is how to keep houses high and dry when storms surge. Architects at Morphosis in Los Angeles have designed a unique floating home working with architecture students at the University of California.
Designed for the Make It Right foundation, the Float House, as the house has been named, will cost about $150,000 and will be sided in fiber-cement panels and will be powered by a folding, photovoltaic roof. Beneath the house rests the design that converts it into a boat in case of a flood strike. The Float House carries a modular chassis of polystyrene foam blocks encased by glass-fiber-reinforced concrete.
The chassis contains all the plumbing, electrical and mechanical systems, rainwater collection tanks and a battery bank that stores solar energy. If water were to rise around the house, it would float but remain fastened to the site.
Via: ChangeObserver/Morphosis
