The ‘Stump Jump Flood House’, designed by PHAB Architects, is an experimental housing concept that combines The Queensland House with a floating jetty. It re-imagines the Brisbane City Council Subtropical Cities Competition winning entry, ‘Stump Jump House’, from 2005.
Inspired by the tragic events of the 2011 Queensland floods (where televised images showed timber houses torn loose from their stumps and carried along with the floodwater), the Stump Jump Flood House combines the light-weight nature of The Queensland House, with buoyancy technology used in jetty construction, to create a house that floats.
· Tall ‘stumps’ at the edges of the dwelling act as guides for the raised house, that allow it to rise with the floodwaters, and then, importantly, return to its original position as the floodwaters subside.
· These ‘stumps’ also support solar collectors and wind turbines for electricity generation, making our existing building stock more sustainable, and flood resistant.
· A water tank sits atop a vertical garden structure, above the maximum flood level, and provides the occupants with fresh drinking water should town water supply be interrupted.
· The additional height creates a covered ‘pontoon deck’ space under the house, reducing the building footprint, and saving our backyards!
The Stump Jump Flood House – if it floods, it floats.
(2 votes, average:4.50)
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This design will also provide the building additional structural support during cyclonic events – the stumps at each corner act as a structural member, reinforcing the housing frame. You could also string a rope between the high stumps and use it as a clothes line!
@Evan Blair
love the clothes line idea. I’m thinking a Hill’s Hoist would go pretty well atop one of the stumps.
Nice idea. It was amazing how many people were without power during the floods even though they had (grid interactive) solar panels on their roofs. I like how Stump Jump Flood House takes its water and power up with it. We need new electrical standards that allow people to easily isolate their power from the grid so that they have self sufficient power in a crisis, whilst protecting emergency workers down the street from electrocution.
@alanhoban
Good point about being able to easily disconnect from the electricity grid. On this same point, some thought would need to go into how to disconnect sewer, water supply, communications and tie-down quickly, easily and safely as well.
This is great- and already similar things being done in Holland and some parts of New Orleans. Check this out- http://morphopedia.com/projects/float-house
Great to see the local Queenslander touch- they are almost there already! Boyant barers and wharf posts are winner, I particularly like the multi purpose posts- well done! Retrofitting is best first option. The beauty of this (and the link) is also its intention to be affordable- unlike some other proposals Ive seen… pretty important if you have just lost everything and companies are acting like…. insurance companies.
@James Nash
Great link – those Morphosis guys are all over it!
There’s nothing quite like actually building it, to test an idea. If there are any corporates out there with an R&D budget, we’d be happy to develop the Stump Jump prototype!
Use the pontoon as water storage tanks most of the time and then you can just pump the water out when the floods are approaching. With a little bit of maths, you could work out how much water to pump out (based on the weight of the house obviously) and then leave some (semi)potable water available for use until the flood is over and services are restored. No need for a tank on a tankstand above the flood level.
The thermal mass when the tanks full would also help to minimise house temp fluctuations, and reduce heating and cooling costs.
There are grid connect inverters (Selectronics) that are available that can also go safely into island mode when there is no mains supply, and these can utilise a battery bank for solar energy storage.
Most services should be able to be mustered to single location. The principle of keeping them connected would be similar to the rotating houses. A knuckled arm (think shoulder to wrist) with services mounted to it would also work.
@Paul Canvin
Thanks for the Selectronics tip. Having an isolatable battery bank makes good sense. Also, I am guessing that the purpose of having a battery bank during non-flood times (i.e. almost all the time), is to store energy collected during the day, and then deliver it back to the grid at peak times, between 4-8pm?
Selectronics inverters use the solar input to charge the battery bank. Once the batteries are fully charged, then the units can export power to the grid (as it is generated). Rather than export at peak times, you just use the battery bank to provide for your own power requirements, allowing you to minimise your time of day peak tariffs – utilise battery power instead of grid power. They also have smart charging functions so that they can utilise low time of day tariffs to charge the batteries from mains etc.
As for the pontoon, the storage of water could also facilitate a hydronics heating/cooling system. Heat could be collected during the day and transferred to water in the storage pontoon for space heating requirements. Might not be a big thing for QLD, but could be useful elsewhere in the country.
I had wondered, too, if a solar powered system could provide power for multi-storey buildings when they turn off the mains power. However, I have been told that solar and any other renewable systems cannot work independently of the grid unless there is a large battery backup. The main reason is for safety as it is dangerous to have solar systems energising the grid when it is disconnected in the local area because of floods or some other emergency. I understand you can get around this by getting a full off-grid capable system with a battery in between the solar and the grid with the solar charging the battery which powers a few of the essential circuits in the building, but this is expensive and may be less efficient and more expensive. Battery systems also have significant ongoing maintenance and replacement costs. And that is why these systems are much rarer and are usually only installed in remote areas where they really need to have the batteries. I am not sure if all that is correct, but that is what I was told.
And it’s an attractive looking house.
What would the maximum height of those stumps be?…just interested to know if there are any maximum height restrictions on vertical structures in Australia. Stated differently, would you need a special permit/licence for this? Here in Japan, we are thinking about new ways of dealing with tsunami and all ideas are on the table.
@Komatsu
The stumps are about 18 metres tall. When the house is at rest, the peak of the roof is almost 12 metres tall.
In Brisbane, there is a height restriction of 8.5 metres on single detached houses in most residential areas. Brisbane City Council (BCC) has introduced a Temporary Local Planning Instrument (TLPI) that allows houses in recently flooded areas to be built to 9.5 metres above natural ground.
Unfortunately, the 8.5 metre height restriction means that the great majority of our housing here in Brisbane can only be built to 2 storeys. This has a detrimental effect on density, and means that our houses tend to sprawl out across their site, reducing the size of our backyards and the amount of open space in general.
We’ve previously explored the concept of a 6 storey multi-residential building, by raising a timber and tin ‘Queenslander’ house, here -
http://www.phab.com.au/PHAB_Architects_Brisbane/Cmp-SJH-Images.html