Cozy Houseboat

Houseboats- what an awesome idea. A house floating on water with a view that can be forever changing based on what you want and where you want to live. So why aren't more people living like this? A houseboat is literally a boat that has been designed and remodelled to be used as home. Some are not motorized since they are moored and designed to kept stationary at a fixed point; and is tethered to land to yield utilities.

A growing number of people now think this way, as more of us look for a simpler and cheaper lifestyle closer to nature. All of a sudden, people find the notion of living on a boat not just romantic, but fashionable. And now it seems that the demand for houseboats are out weighed by the supply of them. So grab your Captain's Hat and lets get to the water!

Some of the houseboats are actually once a cargo vessels and are now converted to houseboats. In fact, the Residential Boat Owners' Association estimates that there may be as many as 15,000 houseboats in the UK, with between 30,000 and 50,000 people living on board. So it goes to show that the demand is increasing.

However in Australia, one particular houseboat I want to show you is the Arkiboat prototype. In fact a lot of people living in Australia privately owned a houseboat as a primary residence or just a holiday cabin. The Arkiboat prototype was built on top of a floating platform taking over nine months to design, manufacture and complete by the architect Drew Heath. Now that the design of the house is for the water near Sydney, Australia, he noted the it deserved a new approach. �The typical model of a houseboat in this region of Australia,� he explains, �is an extruded box from a pontoon; it has little interaction with the surrounds.�