Questions

1. How can a performative design raise awareness on climate change and the effects of flooding on the UK’s coastline, particularly in the over-developed Thames Estuary?

The Thames Estuary is on the frontline against climate change. In 1953, the area experienced one of the UK’s worst floods for 200 years, which led to a large loss of life, destruction of property and general devastation of the landscape. 60 years later, in 2013 and 14, severe floods returned to Canvey Island as water breached sea defences.

2. How can this awareness be raised amongst a wider audience and local communities?

The purpose of this investigation was to present an architecture that together with other art forms can act in an innovative narrative capacity to communicate specific qualities of a place and creatively engage audiences with political, social or environmental issues.

3. How can an architecture that is mobile, with no specific site, exist in a symbiotic relationship with an environment that is prone to flooding? How can it respond to the specific ecosystems and vernacular typologies of the River Thames?

Flood House is an alternative architecture that suggests a symbiotic way of living with the environments we inhabit. In this capacity, the project sits in opposition to proposals to build a larger and more efficient flood barrier in the estuary as set out in the report Thames Estuary 2100 (TE2100) by the Environment Agency (2011). This report explores and outlines the agency’s response to the threat of coastal flooding in the UK and its potential impact on the Thames Estuary to the east of London. Proposals include a new flood defence and increasing the height of existing sea walls to protect valuable land. These are, however, solutions that would further exacerbate the problem of climate change as they would utilise vast natural resources to be both built and maintained.

Flood House is a model of a dwelling that can occupy and inhabit another form of defence strategy for coastal realignment, one that seeks to work with the flood. This alternate defence strategy – also mentioned in the TE2100 report but not presented as a long-term solution – works by puncturing holes in the sea wall to allow excess water to filter onto reclaimed land and salt marshes. This new landscape utilises flora and fauna as a natural sea defence, allowing water to be stored and protecting land and property upriver. Although it means that land will become harder to develop, it provides a more ecological and accepting way of living with the effects of climate change, while also seeking to prevent further damage. Sited on this landscape, Flood House works in parallel with the coastal realignment defence strategy, adapting to the ebb and flow of the tide and shifting location in response to its currents.

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14–5 Historical photos of Canvey Island after the 1953 Great Flood. 16 Current sea wall defence, Canvey Island.

17 Aerial view of Wallasea Island, Essex.