The project explores adaptability for a water-bound future, transforming quarry sites into flood-responsive terrains. Inhabitants construct a matrix of floating and anchored structures—habitable vessels, gardens, reservoirs, filtration systems, and hydroelectric playscapes—embracing environmental precarity as potential.
Define the problem/need you are solving or addressing with your project. How does it address the Open Call criteria, such as environmental impact, social engagement, circularity, user experience, resource efficiency, and community-driven solutions?
This project addresses the urgent need for adaptable infrastructure in response to rising sea levels and increasingly unpredictable climate conditions. Existing flood defense strategies, such as embankments and barriers, are often costly and static, typically prioritizing economic centers while neglecting ecologically and culturally significant regions. By reimagining underutilized quarry sites along the Essex Colne Estuary as living laboratories for environmental resilience and social innovation, this project proposes an adaptive model of inhabitation that embraces water rather than resists it. Community engagement is fundamental, with hands-on construction and learning enabling residents to co-develop floating and anchored structures tailored to local needs—housing, water filtration, energy production, and play. The project aims to minimize environmental impact by incorporating renewable energy and water systems while fostering a socially engaged, self-sustaining community. Ultimately, it advocates for architecture as a conduit for empowerment, adaptability, and ecological stewardship.
Please describe your project, reflecting on the concept, inspiration, materials, technical aspects, methods and process(es).
This speculative proposal reimagines flood-prone quarry sites along the Essex Colne Estuary as adaptive, educational landscapes. Inspired by Cedric Price’s visionary thinking, the project embraces the precariousness of these stepped terrains and transforms them into flood-responsive playscapes and living infrastructures. It proposes a phased, zone-based edufactory where students live, learn, and develop amphibious strategies for a water-bound future. Floating and anchored ad-hoc structures, including habitable vessels, filtration towers, solar shelters, and gardens, create a resilient matrix that adapts to changing environmental conditions. Hydro-electric generators harness tidal flows, while modular construction is aided by portal cranes. This project prioritizes ecological integration and long-term resilience by rejecting static flood defense models, positioning education and creative labor as essential tools for survival. In doing so, it proposes a new architectural language capable of addressing climate change through adaptation, community engagement, and systemic transformation.
What do you think makes your project innovative compared to the existing efforts and ideas in the field it addresses?
The project distinguishes itself by synthesizing education, infrastructure, and speculative design. Unlike conventional flood defenses focused solely on protection, this vision presents a proactive, adaptable model that integrates flooding into everyday life. Drawing inspiration from Cedric Price’s radical thinking, it offers a flexible, community-led alternative to top-down, static infrastructure. By creating an “edufactory,” the project encourages students, residents, and researchers to collaboratively develop solutions in real time. Modular floating and anchored structures permit responsive development shaped by environmental conditions and community needs. The integration of renewable energy, water filtration systems, and productive landscapes ensures low-impact, self-sustaining growth. Rather than isolating people from nature, this project fosters a symbiotic relationship, presenting a practical framework for climate resilience that challenges architects to rethink design roles in creating adaptive, inclusive futures.
Does it impact or reflect young people need(s) and how?
The Flooding School for Amphibious Living centers on young people’s needs by addressing their increasing concerns about climate change, agency, and the future of education and work. It redefines the learning environment as an active, collaborative space where students acquire practical skills in environmental stewardship, construction, and adaptive living. By merging education with real-world problem-solving, the project empowers young people to become agents of change rather than passive receivers of knowledge. It resonates with the shifting values of younger generations toward sustainability, community, and alternative lifestyles by fostering creativity, resilience, and self-sufficiency. The hands-on, decentralized approach of the school responds to calls for more inclusive, engaging, and meaningful educational experiences. By equipping young individuals to navigate environmental uncertainties, the project enables them to create innovative responses within their communities, blending knowledge production with lived experience—an opportunity that traditional institutions rarely offer.
