Sorry to Dredge This Up

All the heavy rain recently has reminded me of the Oxford floods earlier this year.
Here's one I wrote earlier for a competition, but I guess the copyright's still mine!

Charge of The Water Tight

We need to be shorter of water if you won't do what you oughtta
You expect us to save you, then what do you do?
Try to drown us in our own homes, beach our bones.
Water be good, you never do what you should
You p*ss a monsoon in June, when we wanted sun and moon,
Shanghai July, will you ever say goodbye?
For it's hard to find the high land on Osney Island.
Land Ahoy! Uh-oh, false alarm, a lifebuoy...
Water get it right, we'll let you rain each night,
But when it's light, it's the turn of bright.
The sun is sick of keeping his hat on.
The sun wants to put some self-screen (and Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go) on.
So stop putting the ark into architecture
Gimme a break from paddling my furniture.
Rivers are for boats, fields are for goats
Houses are for people, the end of this line is quite feeble...
But you get the picture while I fetch the pitcher
Fill it from the bowser, 'cos I'm worried about the sewer.
Now I don't want to water you down, diminish your vitalness to my town,
But remind me again why I'm saving you when I'm 70% water, and this world is too.
Convection rainfall ensures you're re-cycled, sewage plants that you're re-cycled
Frankly I think you're weir-ed and wonder why you're metered.

© LS King 2007

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*For those unfamiliar with Oxford, Osney Island is a residential area surrounded by rivers near the city centre, notorious for flooding! Naturally it's also where OU are planning to build the new book depository for the Bodleian Library...*

Putting the Ark into Architecture

Need affordable housing, or building on floodplains be grim?

In a country where flooding is predicted to become commonplace, aside from the obvious solution of building on stilts, would it be viable to have communities of homes such as these in UK?
Or even something amphibious that works just as well on dry land, but has a 'hull' which comes into play when flooding occurs?

There is a growing movement of amphibious housing in Holland in particular. Although my primary interest is in affordable and sustainable housing (specifically the Community Land Trust Model Oxfordshire Community Land Trust for landlubbers, I'm also fascinated by other inventive solutions to our housing crisis which are both attractive and practical, ticking a goodly number of eco boxes.

For even more avant-garde floating 'arkitecture', see here:

Inhabitat
Chernoff Thompson Floating Homes
Architects of The Floating World

or deep sea options, here!

Architectradure