The site is in joint ownership between two brothers. Project Orange were approached with a tripartite brief; to redevelop the rear of the site to create a new family home, to upgrade and renovate the buildings onto the street and convert them into rental apartments, and to retain and renovate the existing ground floor business use to 115, extending it into 117 (taking over a café premises on a leasehold).


The client’s aim was to minimise disruption to trade of the office during building work. The private house should offer almost 3 times the floor area of the existing, and the new apartments provide the maximum rental income achievable from the site.

Photographs by Gareth Gardner

While the first Post about the FLOAT House introduced the project's concept and evolution, this article looks into the way the house works, and sheds more light on the Architect's vision.

The FLOAT House sits on a raised four-foot base, which has been reconceived as a high performance “chassis” – a prefabricated module, made from polystyrene foam coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete, which hosts all of the essential equipment to supply power, water and fresh air.

The chassis is engineered to support a range of home configurations. In the event of flooding, the chassis acts as a raft, allowing the house to rise vertically on guide posts, securely floating up to twelve feet as water levels rise. While not designed for occupants to remain in the home during a hurricane, this innovative structure aims to minimize catastrophic damage and preserve the homeowner’s investment in their property. This approach also allows for the early return of occupants in the aftermath of a hurricane or flood.

Last October, was the public unveiling of the the first floating house for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans. The project was designed and developed by Morphosis Architects, under the direction of renowned architect and UCLA Professor Thom Mayne.

The FLOAT House is a new model for flood-safe, affordable and sustainable housing that is designed to float securely with rising water levels. The architects have sent us a generous amount of information that we are sharing within this article with our readers.

Mayne led a team from Morphosis Architects and graduate students from UCLA Architecture and Urban Design in this innovative housing project to help with the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina. The concept emerged from a study of the flooding record, social and cultural history of the city, and the ecology of the Mississippi Delta. Morphosis and UCLA’s collaboration on the research, development, design, and construction of the FLOAT House is exemplary of their shared goals to engage students in real-world design for social impact.

Designed by LAN Architecture, based in Paris, the ‘mirror-tower’ is a 142m. High-rise located in Beirut, poetically described by the architects as 'The city that wouldn’t disappear'

Every city is singular. Yet clearly some are more so than others. Beirut is a unique urban phenomenon, literally inhabited by its history, and with each successive war or occupation finding the strength to combat its disappearance.

The 486 MINA EL HOSN, the ‘mirror-tower’ designed by LAN, is to be built in the port area, opposite the Murr Tower, the shell-riddled building that has come to symbolise the civil war. The tower is absolutely novel in concept: the building’s skin will reflect the city surrounding it. One will be able to see it from everywhere, and everywhere one’s view will bounce off its mobile surface into the surrounding city, showing Beirut in all its myriad facets. And of course behind this innovative technology lies a guiding idea: the impressive outline of 486 MINA EL HOSN, soaring above the skyline, will enable a kind of moving and poetic visual reconstitution of the city – a way of making Beirut itself, its light, diversity, districts and cultures, the tower’s very substance.

Boosting a green lifestyle of art & culture, Aedas’ project the Raisina Residency is intended as an oasis of self-sustained living in Gurgaon of India. The project also focuses on the incorporation of art into the landscape and architecture. Apart from major sculptures and murals acting as focal points in the landscape, an art gallery is incorporated into the clubhouse.

Responding to the necessity of providing sustainable utility services and an increasing interest among buyers for a greener lifestyle in India, the Raisina Residency has an emphasis on green solutions. The designers integrated features such as extensive green roofs, dynamic overhanging shade structure and unique articulated façade screens.

Step Up on 5th is a bright new spot in downtown Santa Monica. The new building provides a home, support services and rehabilitation for the homeless and mentally disabled population.


The new structure provides 46 studio apartments of permanent affordable housing. The project also includes ground level commercial/retail space and subterranean parking.

A striking yet light-hearted exterior makes the new building a welcome landmark in downtown Santa Monica. Custom water jet-anodized aluminum panels on the main façade creates a dramatic screen that sparkles in the sun and glows at night, while also acting as sun protection and privacy screens. The material reappears as a strategic arrangement of screens on east and south-facing walls, lending a subtle rhythm to the exterior circulation walkways and stairs.

Every once in a while comes a project that we feel strongly about. It could be due to the vocation of the center and the sensibility of the function it addressed, or the approach taken by the architects and the city of Dallas in creating a complex intended as a safe haven within the heart of its community.

Naming the project “The Bridge” Overland Partners, worked for the integration of the Center to its neighborhood, the planning in this project, one of the recipients of the 2009 AIA Housing Awards, balances personal safety of guests and neighbors with hospitality. Temporary shelter is a reclaimed warehouse while transitional housing is on upper floors, separating disparate populations. Sleeping areas have translucent walls that welcome natural light and remind the City of the presence and function of the building.

Architects: Studio One Eleven at Perkowitz+Ruth Architects in association with Interstices, Inc.

If a developer wants to push for sustainable design, he should opt, when feasible, for the option of reutilizing the existing structure. Breathing a new life into an existing building while transforming their vocation avoids the wasteful process of demolition and can yield very interesting results.


Continuing our series on the recipients of the 2009 AIA Housing Awards, we are featuring this project situated in downtown Long Beach. Courtyard Lofts represents the transformation of two derelict commercial buildings and an existing parking lot into residential lofts surrounding a verdant communal courtyard.