Architecture Program
Date of this Version
Spring 5-5-2013
Citation
Williamson, Daniel A. "Water and the Architect: Architecture as Decentralized Water Management" Master of Architecture Thesis, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2013
Abstract
Water is the essence of life, a material, a resource, a commodity. It is volatile, fragile, devastating, nourishing and is ultimately spatial. The design of how water spatially inhabits, flows, and interacts with our built life has seen many forms, functions, systems, failures and successes. Over the course of history those who have had the opportunity to define our relationship with water has spread across numerous disciplines, and touched many professions. The architectural relationship with water has seen an unfortunate bifurcation over the past two centuries. It is this separation of architecture from adequately and actively engaging water management, primarily in urban situations, that the inherently spatial characteristics have been buried and hidden from daily social life. Through the presently discrete flows and management of urban water, we are socially unaware of its crucial importance to our life, as well as lifestyle. Architecture has the opportunity to realign its role in helping shape the course and flows of our urban waters, and ultimately reshape the spatial organization of the urban fabric towards a socially water conscious state.
Comments
A THESIS Presented to the Architecture Faculty of The College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Architecture, Major: Architecture, Under the Supervision of Professor David Karle. Lincoln, Nebraska: May, 2013
Copyright (c) 2013 Daniel A. Williamson