With the constant advance of global warming, polar ice caps continue to melt, causing sea levels to inch up every year. For coastal towns, this danger is real and immediate – but Iranian architect Sajjad Navidi has devised a nature-based concept that could insulate rural communities from the effects of higher tides: the Puffer Village.

“One of the major future crises of the world is rising sea levels, which could pose a serious threat to human survival,” says Navidi of his design. “… We need a system that can adapt to sea level conditions. Nature always has the best answer for us.”

He used the lake village of Ganvie in Africa’s Benin region as an example of a place where his idea might have great benefits. The people there build their houses right on the water, but with constant exposure to the elements, they get easily worn out and destroyed over time. Residents live under constant threat of collapsing homes and potential loss of life from this unpredictable occurrence.
Navidi’s creative solution to the problem began by looking to the survival skills of that area’s native animal populations. With many varieties of pufferfish in the nearby Lake Nokoué, the architect studied their biomimetic structure and the way they escape enemies by means of water or air inflation.
The scheme of the resulting Puffer Village is comprised of individual dwelling pods that can rise to the water’s surface when the tide is...