ARCH_500-600 Comprehensive Options Studio: ‘Making Water Present’

Imagine being called to design a project that is vital to the life of any city—a facility for clean water, or wastewater. Though most people do not think about it, this is a real and present issue in much of the world. This subject could be called “The Treatment Plant in the Neighborhood” or, as I like to think of it, “Making Water Present.” As it happens, designing for drinking water or wastewater, also known as a water treatment project (WTP), has myriad engineering and architectural opportunities. 

At one point, infrastructure projects in the U.S. were graced with art, whether dams, water treatment facilities, or post offices. Though rarer now, this concept should be reintroduced to contemporary times. The aim is to involve citizens in this most vital of resources—water—and to see infrastructure not as something that should be hidden, but promoted and embraced in plain sight of the whole community.

Students explored the development opportunities present in designing necessary and vital water projects within the context of existing neighborhoods, looking at examples in Berlin, Singapore, Los Angeles, and California. They then focused on two sites in St. Louis: one in an existing neighborhood and the other in a comprehensive plan for a new district. Students were challenged to design an urban environment in which a WTP is integrated; develop both new and adaptive reuse ideas for buildings around the WTP station; and create a context for it as part of a vibrant, connected neighborhood using a list of community benefits and enhancements for the WTP.

As if they were working for a design practice, student projects entailed a combination of lab and studio, and field and office work. This involved consulting local community groups, planning and building officials, water infrastructure officials, social workers, and environmental engineers. Students also developed construction cost opinions, taking into account the design of the facilities and their impact on adjacent neighborhoods. As a comprehensive options studio, students were expected to develop final project drawings, plans, and sections at ¼-inch scale and other appropriate scales to detail the designs.