“The future of humanity will be determined by our relationship with the natural world and our management of resources over the next 20 years”

The history of water is the history of human beings on planet earth. And over time, the different communities and their cultures have determined the ways in which it is treated, domesticated and intervened in, conditioning the ways in which society inhabits the territory.

The project "Water Research Center" starts by investigating the relationship between society’s interventions with respect to the water component in the city of Medellin, and how this relationship has manifested itself in the urban space on different scales over time. It proposes to break with the traditional paradigm of understanding water only from the technical solution to the problems of water management in the city, leaving aside its cultural, patrimonial and political value in our territory.

The project proposes to understand the processes of water purification and how the infrastructures could provide support in the understanding of the natural cycles of water, taking into account that they are the main tool of sanitation and proper management of water resources. The main objective is to reconstruct the political and historical sense that the city’s water heritage represents.

The process is developed from a conceptual point of view, under the premise that science and technological progress at the service of an optimal interaction with water are the basis of innovation. This is applied to the duty of generating commitments with the cities and implementing alternatives for the treatment of hydric tributaries; hence the idea of rethinking the infrastructure as architecture-laboratory of the territory. The research is oriented to the technical field of architecture and materials, where a search is made for water filters designed at different scales for intervention in the territory, which seeks to give prominence to the presence of water as an element for integration between the community, education and its territorial space.

For this reason, it is fundamental to have an interdisciplinary understanding of the water’s tributaries and processes, resorting to the study of natural and biological sciences that remind us of the obligation of water treatment systems as a vital need of human beings and the foundations for the healthy growth of societies. As a consequence, the study of the forms of human habitation and their relationship with the landscape and the territory is also integrated. These disciplines are integrated, leaving architecture as a means to achieve a single objective: to improve the conditions of human habitation.

“To add to the social contract the establishment of a natural contract of symbiosis and reciprocity, exchanging dominion and possession for contemplation and respect.”

The project was developed at the Pontifical Bolivarian University of Medellín.

KOOZ What prompted the project?

JPZA The degree project workshop at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana motivates students to propose projects with a high experimental load. The brief of this particular course was centred around the design of a bioengineering building located close to important bodies of water which offered a great opportunity to investigate how architecture could both support the scientific programs but also raise hypotheses that seek to reconstruct the biotic relationships lost due to the excessive paving of lagoons, wetlands and streams. The project seeks to: generate welfare, advocate for sustainable technological development and the restoration of the water systems and biodiversity as well as being conceived as s tool for the generation, application and dissemination of knowledge.

The ways in which water is treated, domesticated and intervened, have determined to a great extent, the conditions in which a society inhabits the territory. Therefore, the proposal aims to investigate the relationship between man and water in cities, proposing to question the paradigm through which the infrastructure of water has been traditionally understood, only as a technical solution to the problems of flood and drought risk management whilst leaving aside the cultural, patrimonial and political value of this in our territory. The project seeks to understand and visualise the processes of water purification through an exposed water infrastructure, which promotes, in addition to the solution of technical problems, the reconstruction of the historical sense that water heritage represents in the city.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

JPZA The project is based on the integration of two fundamental thematic axes necessary for the construction of a balanced society: the relationship between science and territory is perhaps the origin of the central questions raised. In this case, the interest towards the realm of science relates to a deep understanding of the problems relating to the health of biotic systems as well as the sociological phenomena that allow us to see science as a tool to reestablish those relationships that have been lost between TERRITORY and living beings as a product of unsustainable urban development.
The project asks the following questions:

• Is it possible to unite SCIENCE AND TERRITORY?
• Is it possible for this relationship to generate positive impacts on the TERRITORY?

The architectural project aims to be more than a building or a finite space; it is proposed as an open, transformable, expandable device that pushes us to think about the water infrastructure through different scales, with the purpose of contributing to the reconstruction of the political and historical sense that represents the water heritage of the city.

KOOZ What informed the city of Medellin as a research site for the project?

JPZA The academic committee of the workshop chose this place because it is part of an urban planning project that proposes this site of the city as a center of innovation at both a metropolitan and national level with the ambition of promoting the development of projects that are precursors of change in the fields of science and technology. The site has already undergone urban renewal processes, promoting the transition of uses in the sector, which went from having areas dedicated 100% to industry, to house educational, cultural and residential uses that generated in me a particular interest, to think about how this idea of renewal could be addressed, linking those thematic axes mentioned previously: WATER – SCIENCE – TERRITORY – ARCHITECTURE

KOOZ What are your ambitions for the project?

JPZA The project is committed to a new way of understanding infrastructure, in which not only the technical problems and their solutions are addressed, but are also disseminated as a form of knowledge. The project aims to insert itself into the city, understanding it as a living ecosystem, a place of congregation between science, nature and man, in which the intervention will only be successful if, in addition to the spatial program, it manages to invite people to think about new models of water management in other territorial communities of the city.
The project also intends to use water purification to arose social conscience and awareness around a resource that is vital and a crucial element in the development of communities, both in biological terms and in terms of social and territorial significance. The project allows and encourages for the applicability in different social environments where the problems are diverse; which allows to increase the debate around water, its management and study. Thus providing the opportunity to create alliances between scientific communities and regional communities, in order to generate a social appropriation around the water resource and the knowledge it provides, producing a dual function effect, because in addition to making visible the natural process of filtration and purification, it seeks to generate environments of socialization and art; spaces that promote change, in which learning is promoted through awareness and experience.

KOOZ How should the work and role of the architect evolve in the coming years to respond to our changing world?

JPZA One of the many ways for the architect to respond to such a changing world is to remain faithful to thinking of an architecture that contributes to welfare, one that investigates context, memory and history and deploys contemporary tools to enhance a specific place for both humans and nature. We live in a world full of information, which allows us to travel, connect and establish connections with places, people and knowledge, the good architect managed to weave and connect all of these factors to develop comprehensive projects that expand beyond aesthetics and formalisms to tackle current and future issues. We must strive for an architecture that takes into account ethical, social, environmental and pedagogical values.