The Hydrofoil: Boat House

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The Hydrofoil: Boat House

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The project is a boat housing situated on a flood plane. The objective was to develop a performative facade system responding to site forces, before fully developing the building, eschewing the usual hierarchy of design process to allow the skin to inform the building rather than clad the previously determined form of the programmatic and spatial arrangement.The most powerful forces to contend with on the site are the flood waters, which would rise over twenty feet, just above the flood wall. Rather than try to escape the floodwaters, The Hydrofoil embraces them, allowing them shape it, flow through, and mark it.Research into general hydrodynamic principles, ship design, and offshore rig design informed the development of the component facade system. The alternating peaks and valleys of the surface break up and contain the growth of vortices (eddies), reducing drag across the building. Perforation “gills” in the surface serve as apertures for views at a larger scale. At a small scale, they serve as ventilators under normal conditions, and allow the flood waters to pass through the building in flood conditions, again reducing drag and the decreasing the force of the flood waters on the building. The angle of the surfaces of the tetrahedral panels, as well as the disposition of the gills oblique to the direction of water flow, again reduces drag, inspired by highly hydrodynamic shark skin.The system transforms across the levels of the building: more highly perforated and smaller scale to maximize drag reduction at the lower levels, larger to provide apertures for views at the upper level, and wider, flatter, and closed to provide rain protection on the crown of the building. The skin is allowed to weather on the exterior, but shimmers with reflectected light on the interiorThe overall massing of the building is evocative of sedimentary stone eroded by a river, following undulating lines to smoothly deflect the force of river currents, while the overall profile of the building goes from wide to tapered to induce a streamlined flow of floodwaters across the building.The program is organized around the levels of river flooding: Docks for launching the boats, reached by a public access ramp, are at 1 feet above average water level; boat storage and repair is on the lower level, which at 9 feet above average river level is free from regular seasonal variations in river levels. In serous flood conditions, the entire boat storage level may flood. The training room resides at 24 feet above average river level, always safe from the flood. The building is anchored to the shore on two abandoned industrial water pump houses, one of which is re-purposed as a mechanical room. The ramp and the wall of the conditioned service core extend the existing massive stone retaining wall further up and down along the shore, improving shore stability.

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Alexandre Kinney

Architect

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The Hydrofoil: Boat House

The Hydrofoil: Boat House

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team