A year of controversies over water-related projects like Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge in London, or Frank Gehry’s LA River master plan in Los Angeles, can paint a fraught portrait of the relationship between design and one of our most precious resources. But in honor of World Water Day, we have rounded up some of the projects that represent the most strategic, innovative, and unexpected intersections of design and H2O that have been featured on ArchDaily.
Architecture and water have a long history of intersection, from the aqueducts engineered by the Romans to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and the relationship holds new value in an age of climate change coupled with evolving modes of thinking about the relationship between humans and ecology. An ever-broadening understanding of the human need for water—from health and hygiene to recreation and wonder—has ensured that new ways to incorporate this classic element into vanguard designs has flourished. The following projects feature water in a variety of ways, from proximity to bodies of water, to designs literally shaped or formed by their relationship to moisture, to projects that are physically immersed in the liquid, and finally other projects which are only visions of a yet-unbuilt future.
Projects Defined by Their Proximity to Water
Carpa Olivera / Colectivo Urbano
Dania Park / Thorbjörn Andersson with Sweco Architects
Plaza San Martin De La Mar / Zigzag Arquitectura
Steinsdalsfossen Waterfall / JVA
Harbin Opera House / MAD Architects
Qunli Stormwater Wetland Park / Turenscape
The Infinite Bridge / Gjøde & Povlsgaard Arkitekter
Projects Shaped by Water
Teshima Art Museum / Ryue Nishizawa
MoMA PS1 YAP 2015 - COSMO / Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation
Merchant Square Footbridge / Knight Architects
"Floating Fields" Wins Shenzhen UABB Award And is Set to Continue Through 2016
AntiRoom II / Elena Chiavi + Ahmad El Mad + Matteo Goldoni
Future Projects Showing an Affinity with Water
BIG Redskins Stadium Designed for More Than Just Football
Heatherwick to Construct $170 Million "Pier 55" Park Off Manhattan's Hudson River Shoreline
How Morphogenesis Plans to Revitalize Delhi by Rejuvenating its Polluted Waterways
