About Us

Onwater provides the ultimate resilient design protection against rising sea levels and extreme natural disasters through our proprietary, patent pending foundation systems.  Our foundations can keep your property safe in catastrophes like:

• the 33’ tall tsunamis that struck the Honshu coast of Japan in 2011;
• hurricanes like Dorian that generated 10’+ seas on top of the 23’ high storm surge that swept over the Bahamas in 2019;
• wildfires like those that devastated swathes of the western US in 2020;
• extreme wind and flying debris events like large tornadoes, cyclones and sandstorms.

Our fully automated, net zero capable, sustainable foundation systems accomplish this by raising the structures they support higher than the largest storm surge or Tsunami they are designed to protect against and can raise 50 feet in height if needed.  We offer systems that lower multi-story structures completely below grade, turning them into underground bunkers in a few minutes time to protect them from forest fires, wildfires, tornadoes, sand storms and other natural or man-made disasters.

They raise and lower by means of Archimedes Buoyancy Principal: Any floating object displaces its own weight in a fluid. This is one of the most mechanically simple and reliable means possible to raise and lower the system.  Our foundation systems can be installed virtually anywhere on land, water or shorelines and include underground tanks that can be filled with air and water to change the displacement of the foundation relative to the land, sea floor or water level around the system. 

Although the foundations float freely up and down, movement in all other directions is restrained by a track system that transfers all loads on the structure the foundation supports to the earth below it.  The load bearing capability and service life of Onwater Floating Foundations match the requirements of all conventional permanent fixed foundations.  These capabilities can allow them to be classified as a permanent foundations that can potentially increase the value of the property and reduce property insurance costs because of the exceptional protection they provide against the disasters that drive up insurance costs.

Onwater foundations transform entire impervious building and hardscape footprints into deep stormwater catchment and/or recharge basins that collect, contain and if desirable recharge stormwater into the ground. 

Buildings with Onwater foundations can include revenue generating occupiable basement and first floor level space that has the added benefit of improving the environment by creating floodwater retention structures that actually reduce the amount of flooding.