Rising temperatures, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. All of these are the consequences of the ongoing and seemingly unstoppable climate crisis. Activists working to improve the state of the planet regularly remind us that it is a realistic scenario that many countries and cities will be flooded in the coming decades.

Will floating architecture become the norm?

Architects around the world are increasingly trying to adapt their designs to today's climate. However, they no longer tend to opt for developments that protect dwellings from flooding or designing houses on stilts. The new idea is to simply build estates on water. Proposals for entire "climate-resilient" or "climate-proof" floating cities have hit the headlines.

A new exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut in the Netherlands, "Water Cities Rotterdam", features the work of NLÉ, an architecture practice operating in Amsterdam and Nigeria’s Lagos. It is a series of eye-catching pavilions that are located in the museum's ponds, CNN reports.

The were inspired by the so called Makoko Floating School project. Makoko is a central district of Lagos, Nigeria, where thousands of people live in informal wooden structures built on stilts in the lagoon. Inspired by the settlement, NLÉ’s founder Kunlé Adeyemi built a school for Makoko’s residents in 2012. The triangular-shaped wooden school was accessible by boat and included sheltered classrooms and a communal play space for children. Instead of standing on stilts, the structure simply floated on plastic barrels.

As CNN further reports, Adeyemi's practice also developed the Makoko Floating System (MFS) which are wooden structures that can be quickly assembled and dismantled when needed. The system is made of modular connections and is designed to meet European building regulations. You can read more about such designs and developments on edition.cnn.com.

Source: CNN