Water voor Wonen

The province of Noord-Holland needs to build 200,000 new homes and clear 2,000 hectares of farmland for the storage of excess surface water by 2040. Normally, farmers are saddled with the former burden, while project developers turn excessive profits as they tackle the latter. Moreover, both often work at the expense of the environment and local landscape. 

With Water voor Wonen, we want to bring an end to this financially distorted relationship between burden and benefit. We propose that farmers, in exchange for storing water on their land, should be given the rights to develop carbon neutral, floating houses on this newly created water surface. Any money that farmers make off of the rental or sale of their new property can be reinvested in the development of new nature, sustainable energy sources and roads. 

We designed these dwellings in such a way that their impact on the local landscape is kept to a minimum, for example by incorporating green roofs. Due to the unique location, occupants of these new homes can learn about and experiment with agriculture in an accessible way under the auspices of local farmers.