Water and Architecture
A very intriguing but complex theme to be explained in a few lines; what is certain since our first studies is that architecture and water are almost indissoluble elements of a project, often sought-after and often trivialized in its presence.
How we can define this curious relationship is certainly less clear to us, almost intrinsic in which it is difficult to understand whether we are working with water, on water, in water or for water; perhaps in this progression the evolution of the relationship between architecture and water in history is also represented.
Undoubtedly water has always represented a precious element of enrichment of the project to which the architect has always wanted to give a particular value, an element that the client has always wanted in order to underline its power, an element that has gradually become more and more discreet and which has made an increasingly invisible link with the human eye with Architecture.
Water today is our most precious and irreplaceable resource, our “blue gold” we cannot do without and which we find naturally highlighted in our landscapes or harnessed in our architecture. We could look at thousands of images of natural landscapes or landscapes transformed by man’s hand with the insertion of architectures in relationship with water thus transforming them into a new agricultural or urban landscape; what we cannot instead see with equal ease and debauchery with the naked eye is how water has become so important for sustainable development and for the future of man.
Blue gold can no longer be an element of distinction or affirmation of an aesthetic or power quality in our Architectures, but will have to deal with its presence as an element of added value in terms of the environment, energy and resources; this is the new interpretation between water and architecture as a natural evolution of the history and quality of life that built has always represented and which distinguishes the quality of our projects and the particularity of our role.
Since when we impact on the water in the project
Often we do not think about that already from our first pencil gesture on the white sheet, when we first approach our project, we have already made a choice on the value of the water; an unconsciously natural gesture that will then have to focus on the value of water when developing the executive project with the choice of materials, with the development of the construction site, with the delivery of the finished work to the client who will use it and who will have to do the right maintenance to preserve its quality. Water is in those materials that we choose and in its production process; the water is in the construction site used to build the building: the water is in the bioclimatic or system choices; water is in the daily use of those who will live there.
From the beginning of the design choices we must ask ourselves how much of this water we can “not waste” in the life cycle of the Architecture in its shorter or longer time and make it functional to each of its moments, this does not mean impoverishing our project, rather it means giving value to each of its elements with intelligent and thoughtful choices, choices that go beyond the value of pure aesthetics.
Our customers of the future will be the young generations who will look beyond the facade and beyond the first immediately visible skin, they will ask us what the second life of our project will be and we will have to know how to give the right answers also and above all on the water.
Water and the future
Here is how the indissoluble link between water and architecture is renewed to look at a different future without denying its history and evolution.
To think that everything is child of its time is perhaps a mistake today; time, like water, is a precious commodity, we change our paradigm and start thinking about the future, son of our time …we will lack time …we will lack water!