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floating home blog
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King Canute’s legendary battle with nature proved that not even kings can control the tide. With environmental change and rising sea levels, we are seeing greater areas of land becoming flood zones. Globally, this shows no sign of abating. So what options are there for Eco Floating Homes to design for this ever-evolving and uncharted territory?
Will we continue building with concrete, knowing its environmental impact? Architects wanting to build to last should look beyond materials that contribute to global warming.
Choosing local, natural materials where possible is a solid starting point, but experience tells us the obvious answer isn’t always the most sustainable. When creating a space that is designed to last, the durability of materials will also have an impact on sustainability. Whatever happens over the next hundred years, the planet will adapt – but will we? Materials that are kinder to our environment are right in front of us. If we wait any longer before choosing sustainable solutions, our concrete walls may well come tumbling down.
APAM and its joint venture partner Patron Capital have won the Business Park Innovation Award for transforming one of the oldest established business parks in the Thames Valley into a sustainable 21st century work environment with modern amenities and a vibrant park life in stunning surroundings.
The media centre is a handmade credenza designed using traditional air dried oak from Castle Howard in Yorkshire and bespoke glass doors by West Country Artist Antonia MacGregor. Handcrafted into a stunning piece by London Furniture Maker Max Payne. It’s fitted to give full conference facilities.
Traditional skills, textured contrasts, turning the ordinary into the very best, free from the idea of just being a credenza. Images expressing the natural beauty of woodland branches, promoting the conversation with nature and blurring the boundary between design and art.
How to climb the property ladder without moving home
Would you pay £164,000 for an extra bedroom? That’s the average cost of upgrading from a three-bedroom house to a four-bedroom house in the UK, in Suburban London it’s an unaffordable £247,000. With rising house prices many people are discovering new ways to increase their space – and one of the ways is with an eco-friendly garden home or home extension.
A more creative approach to rooftop architecture could unlock the potential for a different type of architectural space. As London's buildings are re-purposed and re-imagined the roofscape is an opportunity - not just to build more floors but to build spaces of a quality that delight.
Not often do we see an artistic legacy that lasts over 80 years, but the work and the studio of Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan nurtures artists well beyond their lifespan.
London-based artists Fedden and Trevelyan lived in a unique riverside studio in Hammersmith for decades, and it inspired their life’s work. Durham Wharf studio was home to the artists from 1951 until Trevelyan’s death in 1988 and Fedden’s in 2012.
Sawdust keeping your Eco Home warm
This simple but clever machine compresses waste sawdust from our structural timbers into logs for wood burning stoves.
Growing timber for construction is a renewable resource that does not use large amounts of energy to produce and allows us to fulfil our commitment to minimizing waste and protecting eco-systems.
A CONTEMPORARY FLOATING HOME ON THE THAMES IN WEST LONDON an article by Design Hunter
"This one bedroom floating home on the River Thames in West London was designed by Hertfordshire based company Eco Floating Homes. Bright, modern and stylish, built from sustainable, low maintenance materials.
There is a sustained trend for couple orientated breaks that deliver an experience achieving healthy returns on investment.
London Zoo is not the first zoo to maximise revenues in this way, the photograph shows visitors to Bristol Zoo in the 1920’s enjoying being onboard an ark on the zoo lake.
We built this contemporary two storey eco home as the central feature for the 2012 Grand Designs Live Show at London’s Excel Centre. Our home was so successful that Grand Designs are still using it to promote the show in 2016.
The low impact, sustainable design was visited by more than 85,000 people and looked as good at the end of the show as when it opened.
Floating home at Commodiry Quay, St Katharine Docks
We have successfully delivered another of our 1 bedroom floating homes to London’s prestigious St Katharine Docks.
Eco floating homes specialise in the bespoke building of floating homes and offices, our highly sustainable floating homes are built from materials with provenance using ethical work practices.
We offer a fast and effective service, creating unique floating homes that we can interior design and furnish for you.
Our homes are designed to be flexible, adaptable, relocatable and on site with minimum disruption.
1926 Jacobs Biscuits tin toy packaging, Thames Houseboat Waterwitch
A Jacobs Biscuit tin in the form of a houseboat, its aspirational lifestyle graphics depicting the houseboat “Waterwitch”. This litho graphic is from 1926 and all about selling added value, when the biscuits had been eaten it became a floating toy for the bath tub.
Decamping to your houseboat was an essential part of the season during Henley week for the Great and Good. Butler, maids, footmen even the children's nurse were all part of the required entourage.
Henley Regatta in the 1900's was an excellent opportunity to help Americans dispose of their superfluous dollars entertaining British nobility. The Edwardian surge in houseboat numbers at Henley was aided by the introduction of steam turbines to transatlantic liners that reduced crossing times to just a few days.
As some moorings have size restrictions we are required to exercise our design ingenuity to give our clients the light filled rooms and outdoor connection with nature they want.
A series of original pieces for a contemporary business, progressive, beautifully designed and crafted. The furniture is designed to give an individuality to a meeting room whilst reinforcing the heritage of the long established family business.
For seating we have up cycled mid century Danish chairs and a sofa, the sofa has been completely reupholstered and covered with a Designers Guild wool fabric set off with Bute Kilmory piping. The chairs have been upholstered with a Designers Guild tweed fabric.
300 year old oak barn beams from Somerset provided the material for the table. Our table maker has cut planks and selected the best grain to give a richness to the table top. Once cut the oak planks are left to air dry for several months before the table is hand made.
We can make similar pieces for you, sofas from £2,250, chairs from £500 each and tables from £2,500.
Up-cycled Mid Century sofa to watch the River Thames go by.
Financial Times 9 May 2015
Clarissa Sebag Montefiore features our St Katharine Docks and Cotwolds homes in her Financial Times article about workshop built homes.
View from the floating home over East Dock, St Katharine Docks, London
Cedar clad timber floating office , the Floating Hub at St Katharine Docks
Why I love building with wood.
Wood the world’s oldest building material is now the most modern, thanks to developments in processing and manufacturing highly engineered timber components. We are not restricted to building with just beams, posts and planks there is a whole range of sophisticated, high performance engineered products available. And as the thousands of medieval and Tudor timber houses around the country show timber will last as long as concrete or masonry.
Timber is particularly suited to modern workshop construction methods which deliver high quality buildings that require minimal time on site causing less disruption. This is good for delivery schedules, budgets and neighbours.
Is there enough wood to build all the houses we want?
Professor Chad Oliver of Yale University in a report (March 2014) for the Journal of Sustainable Forestry estimates the world’s forests contain about 385bn cubic metres of wood, with an additional17bn cubic metres growing each year. Only 3.4bn cubic metres are harvested annually mostly for fuel. There is enough and building with wood instead of concrete, bricks and steel would drastically cut global emissions.
High quality, high performance buildings that lock in carbon storage, this is a winning very eco friendly way to build.
The Times "Bricks and Mortar" May 23 2014
One of our eco floating homes has been featured in The Times’ property supplement, Bricks & Mortar. Eco floating homes were commissioned by Prestbury Investments to bespoke design an eco floating home and install it within the prestigious and historic East Dock at St Katharine Docks, London
We use sustainable and low maintenance materials and capture the essence of a modern waterside lifestyle through the use of expansive decks and large opening doors.
We have designed the eco floating homes to be constructed, installed and complete within 4 months of order.
Autumn Eco floating home at St Katharine Docks
