Send us your flood mitigation ideas!
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
We have been commended for our candidness in discussing the restoration work resulting from our September high water damage. We have been condemned by a few for not doing enough to abate these continual floods, so in an effort to make this process just as open, we are inviting your comments and ideas regarding the flood mitigation efforts.
We are interested in those ideas that consist of either permanent solutions to continual flooding or emergency measures meant to minimize the impact of reoccurring floods. We ask you to let your ideas flow through the keyboard and to us, where we will post them on this blog along with a response. Then, everyone else will get a chance to comment.
Please send us your contact info by filling out this form and we’ll touch base immediately on how to submit your ideas.
Before you get started though…
We have, over the course of our five years managing this property, continually investigated solutions to the threat posed by the river. To that end, we begin this discussion with a list of previously proposed ideas:
1. Placement of a pontoons under the building
2. Longer column extensions that slide out of their footings
3. Szikorsky Helicopter to lift the 300 ton house
4. Hydraulic jacks to raise it in place
5. Building up the site flood plain by 12 ft.
6. Move the house to high ground
7. Retractable flood walls surrounding the house.
8. Waterproofing everything inside the house (vinyl upholstery, plastic laminate wood?)
9. Inflatable raft under the house
10. Internal sandbags around furniture and core
11. Dikes and dams
12. Moats
13. Fixed Moment Frame below the soil
14. Sandbags
15. Temporary flood walls
16. Reverse aquarium designed to rise out of the ground
17. Giant Zip lock bag
18. Steel waterproof shutters
When considering these ideas we evaluate them against the following criteria:
• Cost
• Sensitivity to Preservation Initiatives
• Practicality
These are the same criteria the experts will use in considering your ideas.
Helpful Information
The Farnsworth House was constructed approximately 100 feet (30.5 meters) from the banks of the Fox River. The architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, designed the house at an elevation he believed would protect it from all but the most severe of high water events. The interior level is elevated at approximately 67” (170 centimeters). The property experiences high water annually, with the river overflowing its banks most commonly in early spring and early fall. Current research leads us to believe that the interior of the house has received flood waters on 6 occasions beginning in 1954 and becoming more frequent over the years having flooded in 1996, 1997 and 2008. Significant residential and commercial growth in the area is often attributed to the increased threats posed by the river.
It may be foolhardy to believe that we can battle the power of Mother Nature. The Fox River Basin has a drainage area of 2,580 square miles (6,682 square Kilometers) and includes parts of both Illinois and Wisconsin. Altering the path of the river or erecting dams seem to be well beyond our scope of influence. Therefore, we put forth this challenge to search for ideas limited to the Farnsworth House and its 62 acre site.
Happy writing! We look forward to everyone’s responses and posting them to this site!
Whitney French
Site Manager for the Farnsworth House operator - Landmarks Illinois
Help Save the Farnsworth House by Donating Today.
21 Comments to Send us your flood mitigation ideas!
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Nice post u have here
Added to my RSS reader
The problems associated with flooding are very serious, having experienced this first hand, it results in hidden damages that may take years to appear in the form of cancerous rust and blistering within the sub-structure.
This building was welded together, but not seal welded. The steel that is not maintenance accessible in the sub floor and frame are now (as times before) submerged for a prolonged time, that film of moisture, laced with fertilizers, and household chemicals and everything that flows downstream are now a corrosive part of this building. I have reviewed the structural details and suggest that when the steel is properly cleaned and dry, that a 2 part epoxy paint that is used on ship hulls below the water line be considered.
I build Mid Century structures, my home is 300+ tons of seal welded I beams and 304 stainless for window and door framing. Stating the above, my background is high risk commercial landscapes, Rooftop parks, atria’s, Zoos, theme parks with work overseas as well.
In your proposed outlines, there are some viable ideas and many that are absurd. To modify the structure in any way is like putting mud flaps on a ferrari. Not to mention it will start a irreversible trend of altering master works that must be protected first and foremost.
I would like to see the topographic site elevations, as a gradual 60″ berm properly landscaped and grassed without covering/suffocating major tree roots can be incorporated into the plan to keep the water outside the site specific 1/4-plus acre, it can be done in such a way that it is cost effective, visually pleasing and not touch the structure.
To do nothing is failure, the excessive repair costs that can and will ruin your operation budget will only happen again, it is in part as you state, the development in areas upstream that have caused this to occur. This will begin to be a semi-annual occurrence.
Levies and dykes are not the answer, they are ugly, a carefully placed gradual site elevation berm can surround the house site, with the house within a green bowl that can and will keep waters under 5 feet out.
Looking at the photographic record of the 2008 flood it appears that the height of the flood waters was not so severe that mitigation could not be provided.
That said, there is no information to describe the 08 flood as to its severity or expected recurrence interval. We understand the drainage basin has changed since the house was built. The questions are:
1. was this flood what might have been a 100 year flood back when the house was built?
2. what is the 100 year flood elevation now?
3. what is the recurrence interval of the 08 storm?
Without knowing the design criteria for protecting the house any proposed solution is just useless speculation.
If the whole of Chicago city could be raised by 5 feet in the 1850s before the advent of electricity, telephone or hydraulics, then this house can surely be raised… without the need for a helicopter. It needs a pedestal, or just longer legs?
While I am not an architecht or engineer, I have seen features on combating flooding in Holland on one educational program or another. One solution was to build “floating” foundations which are anchored to pilings which extend over and above the projected flood levels. Rather than being torn from its foundation, the homes rise and fall with the water level, much like a house boat. They call it “amphibious architecture.” http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/08/28/waterstudios-amphibious-architecture/
Dig the bottom of the river deeper and wider. Make it deep enough to hold the additional water during flood stages. It should be dug below the site and above the property. Maybe the digging would not disturbe the beauty of the land.
The only way to really keep the floodwaters away from entering the house is to raise the house. I would raise the house 8-10 feet and then fill the meadow a like amount. This fill level would need to taper to the river bank as smoothly as possile. A berm or bank built up along the river bank to levee the house would destroy the site lines from the house to the bank. The charm of the view includes the water lapping at its south bank. For this reason a berm wall would not be a good solution. My plan would kill the trees and this would have to be addressed with new plantings. I personally don’t find this to be a problem and any good landscape architect could really enhance to horticulture of the site. I would propose that the present landscape carvegivers take seeds from the historic Black Maple and get some starts going for a new legacy tree.
I am by no means an expert on flood mitigation. But I have an idea that may work. It could be installed and brought into action in advance of a bad storm. Dig a very deep, very long trench. It would have to be much longer than the house itself. It doesn’t have to be very wide, only a few feet. Cover the trench in a mesh or screen of non-biodegradable material - either a composite or a plastic. You now have a giant pool that the flood can drain into. I would also suggest installing conduit at both ends to provide further outlets for the water. If you cover the mesh in sod at the top it will be camouflaged. Then you can simply have a bunch of people remove the sod before the river floods and the ditch will keep the water from getting to the house. I think this would fit the bill in terms of both aesthetics and cost feasibility.
hang the house with adjustable cable.
The idea of digging the river deeper will not work. Have you ever pulled a rock out of a stream to uncover a large hole where the rock was? The stream didn’t get shallower…the water just filled in the hole. This would work in theory for a pond/lake, but with flowing water, it is useless. The moat/ditch idea is a similar concept, and if there is enough water flow, then it will fill up quickly. HOWEVER, if you combine the ditch/moat idea with a large volume sump with piping to large cisterns placed at higher elevations, that should work. I like the idea of exposed screens over the moat is a very “Miesian” fashion. Make the ditch rectangular around the entire property. Put some perforated mesh screening on it with the perfs being small Farnsworth House logo cutouts.
Based on the history of the site, the increasing flood frequency, and rainfall amounts that comprise the flooding events, the only likely solution would be to raise the house a few feet above the highest flood height.
You really have only three options. 1) Move the house 2) Fill under the house to at least 2 ft above the current 100-yr flood level. This would require some kind of mitigation elsewhere on the site. Perhaps all the fill could come from the site so there is someplace for hte water to go that is displaced by the fill. This will change the character of the site, but there is probably no good choice here. The flood level will continue to rise as the area develops, and the floods will become much more frequent. 3)raise the house on stilts like the houses you see on the coasts. Probably the only good solution is number 2, although you could go with number one. In all cases you lose some context, but perhaps remaining on the site and dealing with the flood issue is better. Photos will enable visitors to see the original setting. In dealing with the floodplain you need to be sure that not only are you protecting the house, but that you are also protecting other properties in the area by not creating a net rise in the flood levels.
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll definitely be coming back to your site.
Hi, good post. I have been woondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll definitely be coming back to your site.
Without having seen the actual elevation, this idea may be totally moot. However, it would seem that you might be able to create an earthwork berm surrounding the house at a distance of approximately 150 feet or more in such a way as to be imitative of a British landscaping ha-ha which hides a fence from view, visually blending a back lawn with a pasture.
This could provide a thick, waterproof “wall” that protects the house (and could be augmented with sandbags in anticipation of severe flooding, esp. on the river side.
Given the natural appearance of the setting, such a grassy berm would be unobtrusive, while providing increased protection, depending on the flood level.
Greetings.
Your home is truly beautiful and well worth preserving. The pictures of it flooded out made my wife and I sick to our stomaches. We live in Arizona and I personally am not an expert on water management. However, the Salt River runs through the city of Tempe and for years caused problems with flooding, erosion, knocking down bridges, ect… There is now an inflatable dam which sections off the part of the river which runs through the city at both ends. The river was widened considerably between the two dams and now looks like a lake in the middle of the city. The dam is automated. I am not sure if this could solve your problem but even if it doesn’t may hopefully lead you in a direction that will help.
Best Regards,
Mål Vaan-Horne
as an addenda to my earlier suggestion of a permanent earth berm surrounding the house wherever possible, it also occurs to me that such an approach may be useful when coupled with a temporary barrier on the river side.
If the house could be enclosed by the hidden earth berm– in essence forming a large “C” around the perimeter– in those seasons when flooding is anticipated, the normally open space of the “C” could then be filled by the utilization of a temporary barrier, such as sand bag. But with proper planning (foundation work, etc.) , and sufficient resources, this space might be filled by weighted shipping containers, which could be quickly brought into place from a barge with a crane. These readily available steel containers could form a temporary wall to complete earth and container barrier in less than a day.
They are stackable, easily moved into place by a crane operator, and resusable, and could form a very solid wall on the river side that could be removed once the flood water receded.
It seems to me there are two basic approaches.
The first is to change the site, either by raising the grade, or by moving the building to a new site elsewhere on the Fox River. Beyond the obvious economic impacts, both approaches alter the relationship between house and site, probably to an unacceptable degree. Essentially, one would be making the Farnsworth site more like that of the New Canaan Glass House.
The one advantage of this approach is that, once accomplished, it requires little ongoing maintenance and oversight. Done properly, it could be a permanent solution. Relocating the house to another property along the Fox River might actually be more practical than reconfiguring the existing site, since the latter would need to be done over a very wide area, with major impacts on trees that would take generations to recover.
The second approach, decoupling the house and site only during flood stage, so that it rises with the floodwaters, seems to me the more reasonable approach, not just because the work is more localized, and thus less expensive, but because it also preserves the original balance between architecture and site, the entrance sequence, the views, all of which are essential parts of the design.
The house could be raised in several ways, either using a single large flotation pad, somewhat akin to a “barge”, or with individual mechanical lifts at each support point. While the latter approach might seem initially appealing, because it exploits the existing point supports to limit the extent of the intervention, the individual lifting elements could prove vulnerable to mechanical failure and to damage by flood debris.
A floatation pad, on the other hand, would be essentially passive, with a buoyancy calibrated to raise the building without mechanical intervention, to keep it above floodwaters for as long as required, and to lower it back into place when waters subside. This element would require a perimeter structure to provide horizontal restraint and prevent the accumulation of debris and silt below the barge. The “barge” and its protective “basin” could be designed to withstand the impact of flood debris.
To construct the flotation system, the house would be lifted, and probably shifted to one side, during construction, then moved back into position once the substructure was complete. Utility connections could be either flexible or fitted with disconnects. Obviously some degree of site cleanup or restoration would be required after each flood event, something the site modification options would largely avoid. An endowment would need to be created to fund this in perpetuity.
One additional benefit of the flotation approach is that it has applicability to the many other properties at risk from flooding around the world. If substantial funds are to be invested, it makes sense to do this in ways that solve broader problems and create useful new technologies. Raising the grade or moving the house to another site are “boutique” solutions that lack this important dimension.
Brad Bellows
Cambridge MA
It is difficult to imagine trying to retrofit this building into a floating building and have it retain any integrity. I wondered if a combination of a berm(which need not be so high as to prevent the view of the river) and a semi hidden moat which could be used as a dry river bed garden feature sort of thing at “normal” times but which would hold a large amount of water in times of flood, (obviously with an outlet at the lower end). It appears that there is a fair amount of lawn area so this shouldn’t mean the trees would have to be removed. You could have a shallow pair of berms with the dry moat between them without doing major damage to the view if you got a good garden designer, I should think.
So a sort of shallow rise then a drop to the dry river bed then a sloped but higher berm between that and the actual river.An engineer could work out what sort of dimensions this would need to hold the quantity of water now causing havoc.
Or, you could even have a tiny stream at the bottom of the fake river bed and make it seem as though it is a stray part of the original river system, while leaving lots of room for flood waters to be contained by its banks. This wouldn’t require anything structural done to the house, nor should it require trees to be removed, as if you are trying to make it seem natural it can wind about a bit and get put where you want it.
Looks like a good forum for whats going on.
Be back later.
Manglerforu
Hi F-House,
Love your idea of public forum.
The flat plain landscape is as much apart of the design of the home as the Mies structure. It is the first of three horizontal planes of the home. To change it would negatively impact the design.
My thought was also along the lines of the Holland Houses with a slight variation. My adaptation would be to set the home on a flat top piston of steel and foam 15 feet tall in the shape of a double ended ships bow aligned with the flow of the river. This piston would be encased in a concrete sleeve that is below grade. This would lift the house and a few feet of surrounding yard like a hydraulic piston when the flood waters hit. The ships bow design would deflect the floating debris. An integral part of the sleeve would have to be a system to remove the silt/sludge, perhaps a sludge pit that could be flushed/pumped out as the flood waters recede. Which would allow the house to return to its current elevation and maintain the original setting of the home. All construction could be done with the home in place.
Unfortunately since I am not an engineer nor architect I can only guess that this would work. As for the cost it is probably prohibitively expensive retro fit. Perhaps a ship building company would be up for the challenge.