Waterscape

Abstract

Water plays an integral role in mediating the natural environment, ecosystems and habitats, and in shaping our natural landscapes. Using water as a tool for form-finding in landscape design fosters a sense of awareness of the relationship and interaction between people, water and the land. The physical properties of water in all its states encourage thinking in terms of adaptable systems and temporality, of surface behavior and material relevance. This thesis explores the dialogue between experience and performance -- the reciprocity between form and function -- through the design of a performative landscape that re-interprets the water treatment cycle as an architectural medium in an urban setting. The groundscape topology curates a gradated ecological agenda that, over time, transforms the seamless and the uniform to a cellularized non-uniformity. This physical transformation, along with the integration of geometric scale and rates of change, informs a social program by creating public pools as a 'destination' for the water that is drained through the landscape surface. The level and quality of water in the pools is dictated by the variation of the global topography of the site, and is reflected in the temporal behavior of the groundscape, defining a coherence between the socially interactive (the architecture) and the seemingly passive landscape.