The Netherlands’ obsessive relationship with water dates to the construction of the first polders in the Middle Ages. But only in recent decades have Dutch designers and engineers considered coexisting with water, rather than holding it back. The Rijswijk-based architecture firm Waterstudio, for example, has gained prominence as visionary designers of floating homes both locally and as far afield as Dubai, while organizations like the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects has sponsored resources including “H2olland,” an online exhibition that explores new opportunities for a life afloat.

Architects Maxim Winkelaar and Bob Ronday won a competition sponsored by the Bosch Architecture Initiative and the Dutch Union of Architects to design a component of the Watertuinen development. It includes an artificial lake filled to a depth of 14 feet with diverted rain and river water. Ronday and Winkelaar proposed constructing a weighty 1,550-square-foot concrete box that displaces lake water to a depth of five feet, creating a “hole” that nevertheless floats on the lake and provides a surface on which houses can be constructed.