TY - JOUR TI - Adaptive coastal construction DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-n27z-g410 PY - 2019 AB - Residents in coastal communities face multiple challenges when protecting their homes. Hurricane winds and storm surges have caused widespread structural damage throughout eastern and southern communities in the United States and internationally. This reality, coupled with existing research indicating rising sea levels and increased hurricane intensity has forced coastal communities to address the issue. One strategy being implemented and continuously refined is adaptive coastal structural design. This thesis explores adaptive coastal design techniques for residential structures, focusing on floating housing. A literature review is conducted on existing design concepts of coastal housing that explored the advantages and disadvantages of various concepts as well the challenges associated with them. The floating home structural design concept presented in this thesis includes a lightweight concrete hollow slab base and steel guideposts to resist lateral loads and prevent lateral movements of the house under an extreme flood event. The presented design concept discusses the critical factors that influence the design of the floating home components and other related factors. The design loads and load combinations applied to the floating home structure were based on a 100- year flood event with hurricane level wind forces and high storm surges following FEMA recommendations. Results of the analysis and design of the floating home structure showed that the design is feasible and sustainable in a 100-year flood event with minimum to minor structural damage. Additionally, a life-cycle cost analysis was conducted for a 50-year period. Using estimates of construction, maintenance and insurance costs, the analysis compared the costs of floating homes built in a New Jersey coastal community to the repair and restoration costs of existing homes damaged following 100-year flood event. The results showed that the costs of floating homes were about 12% lower than the repair and restoration costs. KW - Civil and Environmental Engineering KW - Floating buildings -- Design and construction LA - eng ER -