What is Floatyard?
In 2012, while working with Perkins + Will, I worked with Design Director Brian Healy and a small team to develop Floatyard, a proposal for a floating housing pilot project to explore potential solutions for sea rise that is affecting coastal cities. Floatyard, is a multi-family housing prototype, developed as an alternative to restore a badly damaged Pier in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The proposal was developed for and presented to mayors Thomas Menino, Mayor Marty Walsh and the Boston Redevelopment Authority. It is currently serving as a feasibility study for the City of Boston to evaluate how such a development could be permitted.
The proposal aims to solve a number of social, environmental and economic issues in Boston, making it a potential asset to the community and region. The building is capable of generating tidal energy to test the limits of such technology, it hosts natural wetlands to improve local ecology, and it is programmed to support community recreation. It has been proposed that the project would be built in a local shipyard and towed on-water to the site in order to eliminate the costs and complications associated with on site construction.
Floatyard received the 2013 Progressive Architect Award
the 2014 Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Award, and it was selected to be part of the World Architecture Festival in 2014.