Water as a project material

Conceptual approaches to hydro-social cycles

Abstract

This article leads to a critical reflection on the project theoretical approach to water resources, and, their spatial and social interaction with different geographies which are influenced by their existence. The central concepts are structured on the contributions of referents of architecture as well as those of geography, philosophy and literature. Thus, a pluralistic approach enables to address other perspectives of analysis. Grounded on these research parameters, the article seeks to set a shift from the conceptualization of hydrographic cycles to hydro-social cycles by exploring other forms of action. Taking into account the collaboration of the multidisciplinary approach with the construction of an environmental identity, the selected cases attempt to account for the potential of water as a specific design material. Since their analysis starting point is the consideration of water as a culturally-constituted resource which reshapes traces, cartographies, historical marks, rituals and present diffuse forms as a basis for rethinking the proposed relationship; it is possible to recognize their way of conceiving the hydro-social cycle.