Houseboats in Amsterdam

Half the Netherlands lies below sea level, Amsterdam from flooding protect mnogochislennye dikes and dams. Even the city's name comes from two words: Amstel and dam. Amstel — the name of the river on which the city and the Dame is translated "dam". Hundreds of years, the Dutchman winning by the sea and the land. Construction on the scarce land is very expensive — marshy soil require to score a large number of piles.


In the Netherlands water house appeared for a long time, and the spread in the last century. After the second world war housing lacked. At this time the Dutch fleet was modernized, and people deprived of their "land" housing, began to settle in the old decommissioned ships found themselves laid. Now there are about 10 thousand water houses, of which about 2.5 thousand moored in Amsterdam and the surrounding area.


At the state level in the Netherlands was established to support the pilot housing. With its help, Dutch architects are going for 50 years to establish a city on the water. For this purpose designed houseboats new generation, consisting of lightweight aluminum, glass and wood.


Such buildings are easy to move using normal boats. They will replace the heavy houses on stilts and concrete platforms, the construction of which is costly. Now all projects are in the development stage, there are disputes about the modern types of buildings: good or bad for the historical appearance of the city.


Today in the Netherlands is being built about two hundred floating homes a year. By 2015, the authorities plan to increase this figure to 100 times — up to 20 million homes annually. To their design and construction by leading architectural Bureau Amsterdam, allocated huge amount of budget for developing and testing the newest materials to ensure maximum comfort of the residents.

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