That is common in low-lying areas that are prone to flooding. Especially in the US east and south coasts.
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There are two general categories of flood zones: Standing water, usually called an A zone, and moving water or crashing waves, usually called a V Zone or Velocity Zone. A Zone buildings just have to keep everything vital above the flood plane and let the flood waters come and go. V Zone buildings have to as well, but need to present as little cross sectional surface area to the forces of moving water below, thus the stilts you see so much. Any partitions there are supposed to be designed to easily break away without endangering the structure.
I put up an illustration here of a project that was mostly in an A Zone, but had a stair falling in a V Zone. I had to make the stair case a free standing structure of it’s own, otherwise the whole house would have to be on stilts instead of standard concrete crawl space with flood vents.
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The area where I live and work is literally called the Lowcountry. A lot of the grade elevations are only 6,7 or 8’ and a moon tide is 9.5.
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The Baltic sea has no noticeable tide so the lowest part of the street where I live is something like 4’ above “sea level”. With strong southern or southwestern winds the water in the nearby river estuary sometimes rises to street level. Most buildings have a full ground floor.
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We live nearly 6m below sea level, most buildings are built on 8-20m pillars.
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yikes!
We built our house on 21 reinforced concrete piles, 23 up to 25 meters in length.
Nothing to worry about though. The ground level is slightly higher than the lawn.
So need for snorkel masks (or parachutes).
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Thanks for the shout out, but you are killing it here! Beautiful work all around!
My avatar is my walking on the beach along the Baltic!
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Supper amazing.