Floating Architecture: How Floating Buildings Save Cities

How Floating Architecture Could Help Save Cities from Rising Seas

Climate warming raises an important issue: how can our cities adapt with increasing sea levels? Floating architecture is emerging as one of the most innovative solutions, and architects worldwide have created a broad range of concepts to demonstrate this — from basic prefab dwellings to completely amphibious towns. As global sea levels continue to rise, these floating structures offer a way to live with water rather than against it.

Lagos, Nigeria, has a higher danger of flooding than most other cities. Kunlé Adeyemi, a pioneering float architect, has created a variety of floating buildings, including a school and a radio station, to address the issues posed by increasing tides. Given the consequences of climate change, we might begin to think about the possibility of living with water rather than battling it.

Floating School in Lagos

Some of the architects regard floating buildings as a means of facilitating travel. A team from the University of Coimbra in Portugal has developed a prefabricated floating house that can be sent anywhere in the globe, allowing its residents to live on some of the world’s most isolated rivers and lakes. This kind of modular, transportable architecture on the water represents a growing trend in climate-adaptive design.

What Is Floating Architecture?

Floating architecture is a building system that sits on water and offers contextual space for humans utilizing a special structural system. What is floating architecture in practical terms? It is a design approach that responds to the rising depletion of available land and aims to reduce deforestation by moving construction onto water. Floating architecture also allows for the application of natant knowledge to guarantee that structures float securely. The buoyant force of water is a fundamental element of floating architecture.

This concept has been developed with global warming in mind. When the weight force on an object is balanced by the upward push of water on the object, the thing floats. The upward push of the water rises with the volume of the item submerged in water; it is unaffected by water depth or volume. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sea levels could rise by up to 1.1 meters by 2100, making floating structures an increasingly critical adaptation strategy.

Floating Structures vs. Amphibious Buildings

Understanding the difference between floating structures and amphibious buildings is essential for anyone exploring architecture on the water. True floating buildings are permanently situated on water, supported by pontoons or buoyant foundations. Amphibious buildings, on the other hand, are elevated above the water and engineered to float only when water levels rise.

Amphibious buildings are often supported by concrete foundations and connected to flexible mooring poles. They may travel upwards and float if the water level rises. The mooring post fastenings minimize the motion generated by the water. Both types represent innovative approaches to disaster-resilient architecture in an era of climate uncertainty.

How To Build Floating Structures

Building floating structures requires a combination of marine engineering, architectural design, and environmental science. There are three primary construction systems used by today’s leading float architect professionals:

Pontoon-based systems use hollow, watertight platforms — typically made of concrete, steel, or recycled plastic — to keep the structure buoyant. These are the most common foundation type for permanent floating buildings.

Amphibious foundations allow a building to rest on the ground during normal conditions but rise with floodwaters. According to recent industry research, amphibious foundations can reduce flood insurance premiums by up to 40% while costing only about 20% more than conventional basement construction.

Modular pontoon systems, like those developed by MAST studio, use recycled plastic cages filled with locally sourced flotation material. These systems can cut construction timelines by 30–50% compared to traditional methods.

Key engineering considerations include structural integrity against wave pressure, infrastructure connectivity for water supply and energy, material durability in humid and salty environments, and regulatory compliance — since many cities still lack clear zoning laws for floating structures.

Let’s see the examples of floating architecture around the world and understand more about this concept.

Examples of Floating Buildings Around the World

Sluishuis by BIG

BIG promotes floating architecture in its home city as well, having created a student housing project made of shipping containers in Copenhagen’s port. The project highlights how affordable floating architecture can be, demonstrating that architecture on the water is not limited to luxury developments.

Floating House by Friday

This residential construction was designed by Friday SA and stands on water. The principle of modularity and mobility is used in the construction of this dwelling. This home is outfitted with two little engines that allow it to travel at a speed of three knots. Furthermore, this home is built using ecologically beneficial elements such as carbon prints. This home also features a wastewater treatment system for waste treatment — a key feature for any self-sustaining floating building.

Land on Water by MAST

When compared to traditional industry methods such as plastic pontoons, steel pontoons, or concrete foundations filled with polystyrene, Land on Water provides a number of advantages.

Steel and concrete floats are difficult to carry and are frequently covered in harmful anti-fouling coatings, whilst plastic floats are limited to smaller constructions. The concept comprises of recycled plastic cages that may be filled with flotation material acquired locally. MAST’s system is intended to be filled with locally obtained flotation material, making it one of the most sustainable approaches to building floating structures.

How Floating Architecture Could Help Save Cities from Rising Seas

As sea levels rise, more than 500 coastal cities could face flooding by the end of the century, potentially affecting 1.5 billion people worldwide. Traditional flood defenses like seawalls are expensive and often temporary. Floating architecture offers a fundamentally different approach — one that adapts to water levels rather than resisting them.

Several pioneering projects demonstrate how floating architecture could help save cities from rising seas. The Oceanix Busan project in South Korea, developed in partnership with the United Nations, is designed as a prototype floating city that can house up to 12,000 residents across interconnected platforms using renewable energy and closed-loop waste systems. The Maldives Floating City features 5,000 homes on hexagonal floating platforms, addressing the existential threat faced by this low-lying island nation.

Dutch architect Koen Olthuis of Waterstudio has been at the forefront of this movement, transforming floating architecture from a niche concept into a practical solution for climate resilience and sustainable urban expansion on water.

In 2025, CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati designed AquaPraça, a floating gathering space for global climate dialogue, which debuted at the Venice Architecture Biennale before making a transatlantic journey to Brazil for COP30 — further demonstrating the growing role of floating structures on the world stage.

Advantages and Challenges of Floating Buildings

Benefits of Architecture on the Water

Floating buildings offer numerous advantages over conventional construction in flood-prone areas. They provide climate resilience by naturally adapting to changing water levels. They create new usable space without encroaching on scarce land resources. Many designs incorporate solar power, rainwater harvesting, and innovative sustainable technologies from the ground up. Additionally, floating platforms can create artificial reefs beneath them, supporting marine biodiversity rather than harming it — unlike land reclamation, which often destroys coral ecosystems.

Challenges Facing Float Architects

Despite the promise, floating architecture faces significant hurdles. Structural integrity must account for wave pressure, currents, and extreme weather. Infrastructure connectivity — providing reliable water supply, sewage, and energy without land-based systems — remains technically complex. Material durability in saltwater environments requires specialized coatings and marine-grade components. Regulatory frameworks in many cities have not yet caught up, with few clear zoning laws for floating structures. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) notes that broader adoption will require rethinking cultural perceptions and scaling up funding for research and implementation.

The Future of Floating Architecture

The future of floating architecture looks increasingly promising. The United Nations has been holding Round Table on Sustainable Floating Cities meetings since 2019, signaling high-level international support. Projects like the FloatHub! community in Sweden demonstrate that floating living can also address housing affordability crises, not just climate adaptation.

As materials science advances and modular construction techniques become more refined, the cost of building on water is expected to decrease. With 71% of the Earth’s surface covered by water, floating structures represent an enormous untapped frontier for architectural innovation. The question is no longer whether floating buildings are possible, but how quickly cities will embrace them as a mainstream climate adaptation strategy.