This project is a speculation on designing in a future flooded state of Oakland, California. Much of the San Francisco Bay Area is projected to be under water within the next century, presenting architecture with a pressing design problem: how to design to embrace flooding, rather than to control it? Floating Futures presents a project that embraces flooding, using flood waters to activate spaces within the architecture.

Programmatically, the ‘gymnasium’ was traced back to its roots in ancient Greece, where it was understood to be a space for exercising both the body and the mind. As such, the project includes both an aquatic therapy and pool facility and a library and education facility. Within the library, the book stacks are located in a floating central core. In the event of flood, waters reaching the building are diverted into a chamber below the building. The core floats on this water. As water levels change, the fluctuating core height creates new relationships and spaces within the building. Flood waters are welcomed into the pools and treated with systems from natural swimming pools. People travel through the facility within a series of pools, and move between rooms by swimming underneath walls suspended from above. Water simultaneously transforms the body and its experience of the space.

Location: Oakland, USA

Client: MArch Option Studio

Program: Gymnasium

Date: 2019

Credits: Justin Lewis