THESE HOUSES would be known as floating houses. With the sea level rising as a result of global warming, the low-lying Netherlands is fighting for more space by building communities on water. The company, Ooms Bouwmaatschappij, has built the first eight of the planned 500 floating houses on the outskirts of Amsterdam, capital of the world's third most densely populated country. The houses are designed to withstand gales and can be located upto 100 metres from shore. The houses made of wood and lightweight aluminium, are linked to each other by walkways but can be detached from the surrounding neighbourhood and individually moved by tugboats. There are about 5,000 names on the waiting list for the accommodation that sells for between $180,000 and $500,000. A Dutch academic is taking this idea further and has been searching for ways to colonise the sea. Frits Schoute, a former professor at Delft University, is working on a stabilising platform that allows communities to live in the middle of oceans, unaffected by waves. In his words, “we are working on solutions for stabilising a platform and making some kind of barrier around it, such that it is ultimately safe to live in sea water”. Schoute expects people to start living and working on these full scale platforms by 2020, with floating cities being established in 2050. The world will be a very different place!
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