The Float House

It’s called the Float House.  And it could ride out New Orleans’ floods.

This week, Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation debuted the Float house, which aims to answer the challenge posed by the Big Easy’s flood risk.

It’s long and narrow like the traditional New Orleans shotgun home and sits on a raised 4-foot base.  It also has a front porch.  But the home is contemporary in design, with sharp angles and energy efficient features like solar panels and a roof designed to capture and recycle water. 

In case of a flood, the base of the house acts as a raft, allowing the home to rise on guide posts up to 12 feet as water levels rise.  (In the Lower 9th Ward, which saw some of the worst flooding in the city during Katrina, floodwater reached as high as 12 feet.)

Now no one lives in the home yet, but a family could buy the home and move in as early as next month.  But…residents must qualify through the foundation to be eligible for the floating house or other homes being built by Pitt’s group.  They must have lived in the Lower 9th Ward before Hurricane Katrina struck the area in August 2005.