Living With Water

Amphibious houses? Water resilient houses? Stilted and raised houses? Architects have plenty of ideas for how, with smart engineering, we could build in watery areas in future. They also have a number of suggestions for home owners who endure the misery of flooding in their current homes.

Susan Marling meets the designer of the UK's first amphibious house and takes a trip to Holland, where half the land mass is below sea level, to hear how communities there live alongside vast amounts of water - and what Dutch architects have done to make this not only possible, but enjoyable.

We attend the 'flood fair' in Leeds and look in at the Building Research Establishment where building to mitigate flooding has become a high priority.

But are some of these new ideas being blocked by the conservatism of insurance and investment companies?

Producer: Paul Smith
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.

Susan Marling discovers what architects can do to make homes more flood resilient.