This housing sits atop a timber stilt frame, ensuring a limited building footprint to conserve the volatile environment of the Oare Marshland and serves the new settlers. Individual prefabricated units are positioned on superstructure, allowing for further expansion. The houses lie on the boundary between marshland and mudflats, on the creek’s banks, where the tide rises and falls with the cycles of the moon.

The gridded superstructure is informed by the site’s topography. The modular one-bed, two-bed and family units are unified by reed roofs and reedbed filtration systems that manage the wastewater.

Split into two sections, north and south and separated by a bridge, the elevated walkways that tether units offer rotatable screens for wind and sun management. The room orientations are informed by the climate and maximise daylight, ventilation and views.

With imminent flood risks, the preservation of the natural coastal defence that the marshes provide is imperative. The reedbed system designed into the infrastructure beneath walkways repurposes purified water back into the marshes to regenerate and promote the idea of living with and amongst water.