Sited on a large tract of overgrown swamp and former ranch land fronting the Peace River in central Florida, the Everglades Swamp House is the first in a coming series of tropical stilt houses, largely prefabricated with a panelized light-gauge steel system. During the summer wet season this property can be flooded with five or six feet of water for weeks at a time. During the rains, neighbors of this site commute by canoe to their cars left on high ground by the nearest highway. By logic-and now also by law-houses in this area are required to be elevated on stilts well above the potential high-water mark. This provides a wonderful opportunity to lift the house up into the trees, away from the snakes and alligators and into the cooler breezes.

This situation allowed for an economical use of many points of support from the land. Instead of a heavier structural steel-frame system, architect Anderson Anderson chose to use a light-gauge steel-panel system that provides structure and building enclosure in a single component. It was not difficult to plan the building to have sufficient solid panels that would develop the required shear strength through the panels themselves, thus further reducing the need for heavy steel members. In this case the construction system is prefabricated by a steel building manufacturer in Georgia, who fabricates all the steel elements in their factory and ships them to the site. There, they are lifted into place with a mobile crane by the local building contractor. The primary components are all galvanized light-gauge steel, with a small number of heavier sections of wide flange beams that collect and distribute the loads to hot-dip galvanized mild steel pipe columns for vertical support.

Location of steel solutions

Beams
Doors
External wall
Floor
Railings and Decks
Light steel sections
Roof
Water systems
Window

Types of Steel Used in Buildings

Long carbon steel
Metallic coated flat carbon steel
Organic coated flat carbon steel

Click to view concept drawings

To view other concepts by AndersonAnderson click the following:

Entry for 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing

Camelback Shot Gun Sponge Garden

Organic Urban Living Field