The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses simply rise upwards as well. Such innovation could be good news for hurricane and flood-stunned America. But are water lovers prepared to live on swimming family arks?

A Louisiana State University engineering professor made the rounds of congressional staff and Bush administration officials this week to push a system she says could protect many homes from the kind of disastrous flooding that occurred in Hurricane Katrina.

Leave it to the Dutch to come up with 'amphibious houses' - a concept that makes sense in a landscape where solid ground is yearly sinking. Residents and planners are looking into the future with concern over flooding and heavy rain, an issue that will be compounded by rising water levels from global warming.

Forget the little Dutch boy who held back the deluge by putting his finger in the dike: architects in the Netherlands are busy designing new houses that float serenely on the flood... You can hear the jokes already: too much hydroponic skunk, a crate or three of Grolsch, and then a sudden architectural epiphany: "Shtop! What are we doing? Let's build the chilled out houses that can go with the flow instead up uptight dikes and defences!"

Built from the ground... er water up for fun. It's a full size (1350 sq ft, 3 bedrooms - 1 1/2 bath) house that floats on the water. It truly is the most unique vacation rental on the lake.

The most audacious of the 13 "Make it Right" house designs may also be the most sensible. Morphosis floating house "Make it Right" is actor and architecture enthusiast Brad Pitt's plan to provide affordable, ecological housing to a largely depopulated section of the Lower 9th Ward. That stretch of low ground between Tennessee Street and the Industrial Canal, visible from the Claiborne Avenue bridge, became a landmark on Aug. 29, 2005, when the modest neighborhood filled with raging floodwater. Some of the houses in the direct path of the deluge were swept away. Most of the rest were unsalvageable and later demolished. Nowhere in New Orleans was the post-Katrina destruction worse. Long after the water receded, an enormous red barge that had escaped the Industrial Canal marked the forlorn site.

Energy Efficient Homes Ltd., of Auckland NZ will announce at the forthcoming 2004 Auckland Home Show, its preliminary development of a home designed to float in the event of flooding. This home will be the first of several such homes of various sizes to be adapted to buoyancy. The Model name of the first home is appropriately named 'Thames', with two versions of the Thames under development.