On my way to see Foster Huntington in Washington this morning, crossing the Columbia River on Highway 5, I spotted this floating community.
Some quick Google research:
The Portland region has more floating homes than Seattle or San Francisco. Hayden Island alone has four moorages for floating homes, including West Hayden Island Moorage, with 57 floating homes, on the far west side, Jantzen Beach Moorage, Inc, the largest with 176 floating homes (south of Home Depot), Island Cove Floating Homes with 55 units (just west of Lotus Isle Park), and Tomahawk Island Floating Homes with some 72 community members…
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https://www.vimeo.com/178212429
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https://youtu.be/3N51vv0ZxXI
Americans have historically measured success in square feet. A big house was something to work for. But a growing number of Mainers are choosing to drastically cut their living space — on purpose. They’re part of what’s known as the “tiny home” movement, and they’re living in spaces of 500 to 600 square feet, or less. Why do they do it? We sent Sara Gatcomb to find out.
news.mpbn.net/…
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It was Iraq’s ‘Garden of Eden’; unique wetlands in southern Iraq where a people known as the Ma’dan, or ‘Arabs of the marsh,’ lived in a Mesopotamian Venice, characterized by beautifully elaborate floating houses…
These little-known architectural wonders are known as a mudhif; built without nails, wood or glass in under three days, even the islands the houses rest on are made of compacted mud and rushes.
It’s a construction method that has been used by the dwellers of the plains for thousands of years, but in recent decades, this exotic architecture has almost completely disappeared, and at risk of being lost along with it of course, is the ancient knowledge of the unique building technique itself…
The full article is here.
Also: www.natureiraq.org
Sent us by Rich (Cerebral Vortex)
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Floating home on the Amazon
I recently got home from a two-week trip to Peru with my wife Chelsea. We flew into Lima and hung there for a day. From there we flew to Cusco for two days then took a train to Aguas Calientes where we stayed for three nights and visited Machu Picchu. We then went back to Cusco for a night and then onto Iquitos which sits directly on the Amazon, Iquitos is the largest city in the world not reachable by a car. Everything must come in by boat or plane, we stayed at an eco lodge for three nights. One of the best parts of the trip was seeing all of the different building techniques which are employed from the Andes to the Amazon. Hope you enjoy.
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