There are tons of houses worldwide in coastal areas, and as climate change proceeds, they'll see more and more flooding. Those owners can't all afford to move.

So the Buoyant Foundation Project is developing an ingenious adaptation concept: Instal floaty material to underside of the house, so when floods arrive the house rides up above the waves — settling back down when the water recedes.

It's super clever resilience engineering, retrofits existing buildings (instead of requiring new construction), and is relatively cheap to boot. The New Yorker's web site reports: