From Floating Prototype to Floating Community: Designing Resilient Floating Communities by Using Participatory Approaches

In the overpopulated deltas of the Philippines, people live in areas that see floods regularly. The floods are being caused by a combination of tides, heavy rainfall and land subsidence. The demand for safe and affordable housing is immense, yet available dry land is scarce. By implementing floating homes on vacant former rice fields, demanded new building space is becoming available. To come to a sustainable design that fits in the Pampanga Delta, traditional building designs as the Bahay Kubo have been analysed by means parametric building simulations and resulted in a design for a vernacular architecture-based prototype house. This floating home has been built and is evaluated on technical performances and on occupants’ experiences. This paper describes the process of the creation and outcome of a holistic design framework for a floating neighbourhood design, based on this first prototype home. A participatory approach is used to bring the community to the centre of the design process. Through this co-design process as conducted in the coastal areas of the Philippines, we take a closer look at how co-design can help tackle fragile living situations that emerge from challenging environmental and social conditions and how future scenarios are co-created with residents in the form of visual summaries, boards and relationship maps. These insights are translated into a holistic design framework, built up with fundamental urban elements, where stakeholders can discuss and further iterate on the proposed urban design solutions.