-
1Pipeline
Tanker Ship
Con
test
ed I
nfra
stru
ctur
e
Contested Territory
Political Ignorance
Riot
Transnational Commodity
LONDON UK
WATER FROM MULTIPLE EXTRACTIONSSPACES OF COMMODITY VS HUMAN
TERRITORY OF POLITICAL CONSTITUENCIES
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
MARSEILLES FR - WATER IS EXTRACTED UNDER PRIVATE MANAGEMENT
WATER PIPED ACROSS LAND UNDER GOVERNMENTAL REGULATION ANDSHIPPED
TO UK UNDER PRIVATE REGULATION
THE GEOPOLITICS OF WATER EXPORTING
WATER STORAGE / EXTRACTION
Transnational Spaces of Water
LIQ
UID
INFR
AS
TRU
CTU
RE
-
0BOOK
Timothy Gale Fall 2010Thesis Preparation
liquidinfrastructure.info
Advisors:Brendan MoranJulia Czerniak
1ABSTRACT
Transnational Spaces of Water
2FLOWS
A Hydropolitical Morphology
B Infrastructural Space of Water
C Water as Commodity
D Territorialization
E Methodology
-
34SPECULATIONS
A Urban Water Territories
C Water Embassy
D Water Vault
5NOTES
Glossary
Bibliography
3TERRITORY XXL
A Politics: Corporation + State + Citizenry
B Infrastructure: Water Tower
C Space: Human + Water
D Site: EU + London
The physical infrastructures of the twentieth century - those of
roads, rail, sewage, water, air, data, amongst others - have tended
to operate as singular and independent sys-tems. The
infrastructures of the twenty-first century must investigate
relationships and transparencies - to the pairing of infrastructure
and landscape, infrastructure and public amenities, infrastructure
and architecture.
Liquid infrastructure utilizes water to illustrate and examine
the flows that administer the this process: flows of social power,
labour, infor-mation, capital, and resources that produce the
contemporary urban landscape.
-
The ownership of water supply systems by transnational
privatized consortia are radically changing cities and the way we
live. Therefore, contemporary urbanisms and the water
infrastructures which support them are becoming complex due to
geopolitical power rela-tionships. But the public is basically
unaware. The political and physical realities of water
infrastructural management are creating conflict between
governments, corporations and urban citizenry. Urban water systems
are becoming contested territories of public access/ownership and
city municipalities are becoming marginalized by private interest.
By investi-gating the dialectic between territories of water and
urban need, one can study it effects at a local and transnational
condition, enabling geopolitical forces to manifest in a productive
rethinking of urban form and public infrastructural access.
-
5The project produces an architecture that does not attempt to
solve the conflicting con-ditions that exist in London and the
greater European Union. The project explores the ramifications of a
continuous infrastructural network linking the fragmented urban
fabric of private infrastructural enclaves within urban form. When
it is possible to imagine what is happening in the extended matrix
of connectivity every time a tap is opened, it is pos-sible to see
the opportunity at each junction and to imagine private ritual and
public life enhanced through the process.
Thus the project proposes a new radical programmatic hybrid
institution which redefines the government as an institution no
longer exclusively dedicated to the representation of politics, but
as an information store where all potent forms of flows are
presented equally and legibly. In an age where the territory of
water resources are transnational, the cura-tion government and
corporation interaction and their content [infrastructure] is vital
for public awareness. This new coupling of architecture,
infrastructure and politics is vital. The form becomes the
action.
-
?HYDROSPATIALLANDSCAPES OF WATER
The 21st century will be defined by our collectively growing
need for water. Paradoxically, impending water shortages and crises
are changing the rapid patterns of urbanization by requiring urban
form to simultaneously adapt to water need and water defense.
Increasingly required is elaborate infrastructures/systems to
source, divert, collect and transport this liquid substance to our
urban centres. How can the infrastructural complex integrate in
accordance with the urban landscape to create a balance between
infrastructure, social program, and ecological existence to develop
a new productive urban paradigm in an increasingly de-public
realm?
Cities relationship to water has existed since the urban form
prevailed. Water is conceptual-ized in the human experience in
cultural, societal, ritualistic, and need basis. New forms of water
production are occurring due do increasing urban densities and
geologically changing environments. Globalization and urban need
have created prolific political situations between private
corporations and pubic states which serve the urban citizenry. The
combination of the existing and new infrastructures is creating new
territories of water control and in turn produc-ing new spatial
relationships between these emerging/existing spaces of water.
Resources are complex in relationship to human beings. Water is
said to be the next oil. Water can not only be viewed as a resource
and precious life force on our planet. It needs to be dis-cussed in
the context of a greater global complexity based on the political,
social, economic, and situations of crises are constantly the
multiple contingencies that direct and control how urban societies
think and physically manifest their infrastructures. How, where,
and why can architecture intervene in this complex system? It is
the assertion of this document - it is im-perative that
architecture and the role of the designer not only understand the
forces shaping this discourse, but to provide agency in
highlighting issues. What design potentials exist, in this
expanding liquid landscape?
The European Union present a clear example of water
infrastructural management and ownership. The landscape of water
that this project deals with is territorial - the XXL.
Infra-structural management of water across continent, country and
city boundaries is complex and not understood. The opportunity for
design analysis, critique, connection and intervention to highlight
the absurd flows of water informed by virtual/physical containment
of the infrastruc-tural and geopolitical. This allows for new
pairings of program, infrastructure and resource.
Total Design has two meanings: first, what might be called the
implosion of design, the focusing of design inward on a single
intense point; second, what might be called the explosion of
design, the expansion of design out to touch every possible point
in the world. - Mark Wigley from What Ever Happen to Total
Design?
-
7Redrawn Buckminster Fuller Map of Earth Land Network
Connections
Redrawn Buckminster Fuller Map of Earth Water Network
Connections. The water map representation of the world demonstrates
the connectivity of water based transit - the movement of
resources. It also is a different way of viewing the networks -
water based connectivity differs in spatial interpretation of
flows. Vectors of connection demonstrate flows of proximity.
70% of the Earth is Water
30% of the Earth is Land
100% of the Cities Import Water
-
1ABSTRACTTRANSNATIONAL SPACES OF WATERIf politics means making
decisions that divide, then nothing divides quite like the
kilo-metres of concrete and steel that make up a freeway or rail
line. By understanding infra-structure as the structuring of access
we foreground the way it unevenly redistributes opportunity (and
cost) in accordance with power. As such it forms a crucible for
political activity. - Kazys Varnelis from The Infrastructure City:
Network Ecologies
The effects of transnational privatized consortia are radically
changing water supply systems in relation to cities and the way we
live. Contemporary urbanisms and the water infrastruc-tures which
support them are becoming complex due to geopolitical power
relationships. The political and physical realities of water
infrastructural management are creating conflict between
governments, corporations and urban citizenry. Urban water systems
are becom-ing contested and situations of public access/ownership
and city municipalities are becom-ing marginalized by private
interest. Within the water supply system, storage of freshwater
become the most important moment of public intervention.
This project contends that water storage are places where solved
conflict and political ambi-guity can manifest to highlight the
absurdity of this situation in the most cogent form. By
in-vestigating the dialectic between territories of water and urban
need, one can study it effects at a local and transnational
condition, enabling geopolitical forces to manifest in a productive
rethinking of urban form and infrastructural access. Design and
architecture need to position the discourse in emergent
opportunities.
This project contends that design and architecture can insert
itself into the infrastructural landscape and can take on new roles
of influence. Territories of water importation and expor-tation are
absurd.
This project explores how new forms of water storage tower
infrastructure might be extrapo-lated from geopolitical contention
in this case, materializing architectural form from the political
interstices of the World Trade Organization General Agreements on
Privatizing Urban Services. The water tower is an access point to
represent the greater territory. London, as other countries
situated in the European Union, locates resources needed for its
urban inhab-itants often within other countries.
The General London Councils [GLC] termination in the 1980s and
the beginning of the Greater London Administration [GLA] in the
2000s provides a shift for how the city thought about water storage
for the urban environment. The function of storage was until 1990
solved with the construction of water for other usages. From 1990
water structures have been exclu-sively built for storage. The
water tower as symbol and physical storage in the urban
environ-ment is traditionally historically - the new tower
represents the territory of flows and operation.
01*,2!
0/1,-3!):1,)/,!-/5!7/
2;!-70673
860/,69*/617
0/1,-3!):1,)*0!
=17!)1:)>*?/-4106/617
-
01*,2!
0/1,-3!):1,)/,!-/5!7/
2;!-70673
860/,69*/617
0/1,-3!):1,)*0!
=17!)1:)>*?/-4106/617
SOURCE
DISTRIBUTION
CLEANSING
STORAGE FOR TREATMENT
STORAGE FOR DISTRIBUTION
ZONE OF JU
XTAPOSITIONZON
E OF CONTEN
TIONZON
E OF CONTEN
TION
-
INTERSTITIAL SPACE
LOND
ON
PARI
SEXTR
AC
TIO
N
STO
RA
GE
EXTR
AC
TIO
N
ENGLAND
FRANCE
INTERSTITIAL SPACE
WALES
TRANSNATIONAL MIXING SPACE
WATER
GEOPOLITICS
STORAGE
-
If architecture and urban design can be more closely integrated
with complex natural and anthropogenic processes of water
extraction/movement/utility, then water in all its forms and modes
of operation can be valued in its many relationships to human
existence.
Politics, privatization and institutionalization of natural
resources infrastructure of water in cities is hidden and
inadequately understood by the citizenry. However, the buried or
hidden relationships are vital to the successful functioning of the
contemporary city. Public rights of ownership and access are
misunderstood, pushed aside or ignored.
The realities of human existence have become increasingly
abstracted, complex, and conflict-ed by global systems, which blind
us from their true nature and consequences. It firstly has to be
recognized that crisis occurs when existing models fail.
What is at stake for architecture in the geopolitical
organization and management of water? This project contends that
architectural design can highlight the marginalization
[invisibility] of transnational private consortia through revealing
and exposing place and agency in the infrastructural landscape. The
relationship between the political state and corporation further
mystifies the complexity of physical space. This dynamic can be
termed hydrospatiality.
The European Union presents a clear illustration of current
crippling and contentious effects of water infrastructural
privatization on various urban territories. Examples range from the
rapid deterioration of infrastructure and politics in Pariss urban
core in the last ten years; Bel-giums public complete appropriation
of water filtration facilities in order to eradicate private
ownerships of water supply; and the use of water pipelines in
Germany and Spain to surrepti-tiously divide urban communities.
The project produces an architecture that does not attempt to
solve the conflicting con-ditions that exist in London and the
greater EU: water supply access riots, power control
marginalization, and infrastructural territory.
Rather, architecture will be a vehicle to spatialize these
forces, bridging the gap between what is a jarring reality, and an
architectural reality that suspends judgement in order to juxtapose
and highlight absurd reality, producing a reconceptualization of
the current political, social and urban relationship to water
storage as a space of productive infra-structural influence in
revealing and exposing.
The project highlights the absurd - making it the situation
transparent. The project ex-plores the ramifications of a
continuous infrastructural network linking the fragmented urban
fabric of private infrastructural enclaves.
Ultimately, this thesis questions the potential absurdity of
symbol and hidden strategies within London by attempting to realize
them.
The project explores the ramifications of a continuous
infrastructural network linking the fragmented urban fabric of
private infrastructural enclaves within urban form.
When it is possible to imagine what is happening in the extended
matrix of connectivity every time a tap is opened, it is possible
to see the opportunity at each junction and to imagine private
ritual and public life enhanced through the process.
INTERSTITIAL SPACE
LOND
ON
PARI
SEXTR
AC
TIO
N
STO
RA
GE
EXTR
AC
TIO
N
ENGLAND
FRANCE
INTERSTITIAL SPACE
WALES
TRANSNATIONAL MIXING SPACE
WATER
GEOPOLITICS
STORAGE
-
13
SOURCE / EXTRACTION
INFRASTRUCTURAL TRANSIT
STORAGE FOR TREATMENT
FILTRATION
STORAGE FOR DISTRIBUTION
DISTRIBUTION
ZONE OF JU
XTAPOSITIONZON
E OF CONTEN
TIONZON
E OF CONTEN
TION
-
With water infrastructure privatization in the late 1980s in the
EU new geopolitical agreements between countries and corporations
influenced the management of design and urban services as well
resource agreements. For example, the function of water stor-age
until 1990 was solved with the construction of water for other
uses. With new com-modification of infrastructure and the water
within it, design of water structures exclu-sively for storage
began.
Through the re-appropriation of architecture in a metaphorical
sense, a re-imagining of the disciplinary and professional
commitments of capital A Architecture to include tradi-tional
externalities of political, social, environmental, and various
other mediated con-tents. In doing so, infrastructures becomes the
site and subject. Seeking to re-animate architectural discourse
with urban relevance. The twentieth century was witness to both an
infrastructure boom and bust. It is the twenty-first century that
will need to determine not only how to address ineffective
infrastructures, but also new geopolitical and trans-national
situations and how to position new infrastructures and program that
confront urgent issues of climate, sustenance, and politics. The
opportunity for projecting a future infrastructure lies in bundling
multiple processes with spatial experiences. This project aims to
declare infrastructures as open systems, adaptive and responsive to
environ-ments and occupation of water territories. Operating at a
territorial scale, the project creates new moments of social
production and speculation.
The design of infrastructure is therefore open and anticipatory.
It has nothing to do with a specific message; rather, it is the
design of the system that makes it possible to send any number of
messages. It is for this reason that infrastructure is broadly
democratic. It represents the investment by the state into systems
that allow the movement and ex-change of information, without
specifying the content of that information or the range of
movement. This is not to say that infrastructures are utopian;
infrastructures are systems of control as well. They can be easily
regulated by switches and checkpoints, and shut down when required.
And the operation of infrastructural systems depends as much on
maintaining separation as it does in establishing connections. Yet
we know there is always something slightly out of control when
infrastructures proliferate.
The physical infrastructures of the twentieth century - those of
roads, rail, sewage, water, air, data, amongst others - have tended
to operate as singular and independent sys-tems. The
infrastructures of the twenty-first century must investigate
relationships and transparencies - to the pairing of infrastructure
and landscape, infrastructure and public amenities, infrastructure
and architecture.
CONTEXTEU WATER+INFRASTRUCTURE
-
15
VEOLIA
RWE
SUEZ
EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER
LONDON WATER SOURCE GEOGRAPHY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER
-
2FLOWSWater is not just a resource. It is also a force of
manipulation and control.
1ABSTRACT
Transnational Spaces of Water
2FLOWS
A Hydropolitical Morphology
B Infrastructural Space of Water
B Water as Commodity
D Territorialization
E Methodology
-
17
4SPECULATIONS
A Urban Water Territories
C Water Embassy
D Water Vault
5NOTES
Glossary
Bibliography
3TERRITORY XXL
A Politics: Corporation + State + Citizenry
B Infrastructure: Water Tower
C Space: Human + Water
D Site: EU + London
-
2A
FLOWSUNDERSTANDING HYDRO-POLITICAL SPATIALIZATION
Infrastructurally is inherently political. Water is political.
Human beings love to be political. Thus this project deals with the
political. The extension of power dynamics of distribution have
been conflated with the rise of the private corporation. This began
as with the state power failing state administering separate
councils to oversee urban services. With massive economic
restructuring in the 1980s the cities began turning their urban
service councils into private companies. The European Union in the
1990s gave birth to the first transnational water corporations.
This changed the political dynamics of water distribution at all
scales.
But this transformation occurred under governmental valences
unknown to the public. In the early 2000s the public citizens in
European Union countries such as France and Switzerland commenced a
process of riots, protests, political engagement, and
infrastructural appropria-tion as a way to reclaim what is
considered public domain.
A new theoretical framework for understanding how
decision-makers arbitrate the distribution of urban resources and
in doing so become key agents in the governance and control of the
populations they serve.
The interaction of the state/citizen/corporation transformed
through public services.
Politically, the project specifically examines nation states in
relation to each other [London, France and Wales], the World Trade
Organizations [WTO] services council, General Aggree-ment on Trade
Services [GATS] backing by private transnationals in marginalizing
cities and peoples access to water as an urban right. The General
London Councils [GLC] termination in the 1980s and the beginning of
the Greater London Administration [GLA] in the 2000s provides a
shift for how the city government of London view of water
infrastructure services predicated on the WTO mandate to privatize
water infrastructures.
London is currently controlled, operated and owned by Thames
Water, which is a subsidiary of RWE [the largest water corporation
in the world]. The current political landscape situates in
extracting water in France by private means and distributing it to
London for public means.
If politics means making decisions that divide, then nothing
divides quite like the kilo-metres of concrete and steel that make
up a freeway or rail line. By understanding infra-structure as the
structuring of access we foreground the way it unevenly
redistributes opportunity (and cost) in accordance with power. As
such it forms a crucible for political activity. - Kazys Varnelis
from The Infrastructure City: Network Ecologies
-
19
$
$
Citizenry
The State
Corporation
Infrastructure
InfrastructureInfra
stru
ctur
e
$
Water Infrastructure is the lens through which to understand the
political, social and urban - the physical territories created by
geopo-litical powers between private and public constituencies. The
territory of water infrastructure is a complex power play of the
political. Nature, The State, Corporation and The Citizen are four
entities which influence transnational water flow.
These icon symbol representations follow the structure of the
book as understanding which of these bodies is functioning in the
crea-tion of the image, diagram, concept and territory.
Nature
1 Private Transnational Consortia refers to conglomeration of
five main Private Water Corporations: Suez, RWE, Vivendi, Veolia,
and BiWater. These corporations are own all of the worlds private
water supply through subsidary names. They act transnationally
independent of national government resource regulations.
2 Source: The Services Council, its Committees and other
subsidiary bodies. World Trade Organization. 2010.
-
MBW LCC GLAGLC
1800
1810
1820
1830
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1840
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
1800
1810
1820
1830
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1840
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
In 1850, the Great Stink occurred in London. A complete
awareness that the infrastruc-ture in the city was not working.
With this came a new establishment of councils and boards to
oversee the development and large scale management of water systems
in London. Before this, it was done at a very local level not
leaving large planning processes to design the system.
1855 - 1890 Metropolitan Board of WorksThe Metropolitan Board of
Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of London-wide government
from 1855 until the establishment of the London County Council in
1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to
cope with Londons rapid growth, which it successfully accomplished.
The MBW was an appointed rather than elected body.
1960 - 1990 Greater London CouncilThe Greater London Council
[GLC] created new responsibility for public transport, road
schemes, hous-ing development and regeneration, as well as creating
new systems of potable water to the now increased London
metropolitan area. It established new pumping stations and
reservoirs to the west of London.
CONTEXTPOLITICAL MORPHOLOGY
The Great Stink Privatize Water
-
21
MBW LCC GLAGLC
1800
1810
1820
1830
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1840
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
1800
1810
1820
1830
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1840
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
1970The Thames Water Authority was founded, under the terms of
the Water Act 1973, and took over the following water supply
utilities and catchment area management bodies
1990 Thames Water was privatised as Thames Water Utilities
Limited, with the transfer of its regulatory, river management and
navigation responsibilities to the National Rivers Author-ity,
which later became part of the Environment Agency.[6]. The company
was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of
the FTSE 100 Index.
2001 Thames Water was acquired by the German utility company
RWE. Following several years of criticism about failed leakage
targets, RWE managed to buy the company for 8.0 billion pounds and
invest 1 billion in infrastructural development in the first
year.
1890 - 1960 London County Council The London County Council
(LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of
London, through-out its 18891965 existence, and the first
London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It
covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by
the Greater London Council. The LCC was the largest, most
significant and ambitious municipal authority of its day.
1990 - 0000 Greater London AuthorityThe Greater London Authority
[GLA] is a strategic regional authority, with powers over
transport, policing, eco-nomic development, fire and emergency
planning. Four functional bodies Transport for London,
Metropoli-tan Police Authority, London Development Agency and
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority are responsible for
delivery of services in these areas. The planning policies of the
Mayor of London are detailed in a statutory London Plan that is
regularly updated and published.
At each transition of the government, Thames Water also change.
Firstly it was a public council becoming an agency with private
interest and recently becoming a private company bought and traded
transnation-ally by RWE, a German water and utility
corporation.
-
2B
FLOWSINFRASTRUCTURAL SPACE OF WATER
The infrastructural space of water in this project situates
itself in the context of extraction or sourcing, the flow of
transit [pipeline/tanker] and then the storage of water for
distribution into complex connective system of taps and
faucets.
London grew tremendously in the hundred years between 1860 and
1960, and infrastruc-ture was the foundation for that growth.
Trains, streetcar lines, streets and highways allowed inhabitants
to rush around with relative ease. As infrastructure filled past
capacity and congestion became bad, the public had faith that the
experts would solve the problems by constructing new infrastructure
- always more capacious and more technologically advanced. But
ofcourse, this is not true.
Water Infrastructure was idealized by modernist architects. Take
Vers une Architecture, for example, in which Corbusier extolled the
societal transformations that would take place if only the people
were to listen to the architect and the engineer. It was, after
all, a matter of architecture or revolution. For modernists, a plan
and the capacity of a clear idea would bring order to the chaos of
the metropolis. In implementing the plan, modern architecture
relied on infrastructure above all else.
A citys modernity became nearly equivalent to its
infrastructure, as evident in Haussmanns reconstruction of Paris,
the ultra-real technological landscapes of Tony Garniers Cite
Indus-trielle, or the wild, electric fantasies of Antonio SantElias
Citta Nuova. Modern architecture would be nothing but pastiche
without engineering to support it - merely new clothes for an old
body. The engineer, Le Corbusier concluded, puts us in accord with
natural law. Only after the engineer laid down a foundation could
the architect start to create beauty through form. The space of
water is infrastructural. The infrastructural space of water vast -
designed as spaces for commodity - not spaces for the human.
If we term everything Infrastructure, then we have defined
infrastructure as nothing ...This raises the question as to what
isnt infrastructure. The answer to this would be to say that the
property of something being infrastructural or not, does not
properly belong to the object itself, it emerges through the
relation said object has with other objects. If this relationship
is a dependent one, in which one object relies on the other for its
functioning, then we might say that the second object plays the
role of infrastructure. However if the relation between the objects
is characterized by autonomy that is to say independence then we
could not say that the object operates infrastructurally. - Adrian
Lahoud
-
23
London Beckton Water Filtration Treatment Plant. The largest
facility in the EU. The security is as high as a maximum security
prison. Water is unloaded from France/Wales and England. This is a
transnational space of water. A private infrastructural enclave
mixing water from multiple geographic locations
London Beckton Water Filtration Treatment Plant. The largest
facility in the EU. The security is as high as a maximum security
prison. Water is unloaded from France/Wales and England. This is a
transnational space of water. A private infrastructural enclave
with
Social Political
Urban
Infrastructure
InfrastructureInfra
stru
ctur
e
$
-
2C
FLOWSWATER AS COMMODITY
For historical reasons, three private companies grew up in
France over the last century, oper-ating water concessions for a
number of local authorities. This happened nowhere else in the
world, and these three French companies Suez- Lyonnaise, Vivendi,
and SAUR were the only water companies in the world which were
private, used to operating across a number of different public
authorities, and with the size and capital resources to take
advantage of the fashion for privatization which started in the
1990s. Today, about 5 percent of the worlds wa-ter is in private
hands. The water sector thus has enormous potential for the few
multinational corporations that dominate this market.
A report, Water Justice for All, released in March 2003 shows
that water privatization has had negative impacts on communities in
many countries and threatens to affect an increasing number of
people. It reports global and local resistance to the control and
commodification of water.
Civil society demands that access to drinking water be
recognized as a universal human right, in order to ensure that
everyone can benefit from water resources. At the same time, it
raises its voice against leaving water exploitation in the hands of
private corporations whose only concern is making a profit from
such services. Signed in Lisbon, Valencia (Spain) in 1998, the
Water Manifesto is intended to demonstrate symbolically,
politically and technically the urgent need for a water
revolution.
The globalizing effect and commodification of water is largely
due to the spatial commodifica-tion of property and infrastructure.
The way in which people understand water is inherently a
commodification of substance and resource. Water is a human need
and want. Thus eve-ryone needs it, especially the difficulty of
urban centres. With the commodification of water infrastructure
into private interest, water became an economic good, a
commodity.
In the past, governments unanimously believed access to basic
human services such as water, healthcare and education should not
be included in trade agreements because these were essential
components of citizenship. However, the World Trade Organization
[WTO] and the General Agreement on Urban Services [GAUS] erodes
these basic human rights.
If politics means making decisions that divide, then nothing
divides quite like the kilo-metres of concrete and steel that make
up a freeway or rail line. By understanding infra-structure as the
structuring of access we foreground the way it unevenly
redistributes opportunity (and cost) in accordance with power. As
such it forms a crucible for political activity. - Kazys
Varnelis1
ENGLAND
SECTION TROUGH WATER TANKER
FRANCEWALES
-
25
ENGLAND
SECTION TROUGH WATER TANKER
FRANCEWALES
-
2D
FLOWSTERRITORIALIZATION
Globally, cities water supply systems operate in three systems
of management. The first being a completely public system operated
by public government agencies. The second system be-comes a step
between completely public governance to completely private
governance. With the expansion of cities and industrial growth,
cities sought to charter private government insti-tutions to manage
specific public functions of the urban water system. Private
partnerships were established the growth of Public-Private
Partnerships [PPPs] in the delivery of essential services to urban
residents which has been articulated as a form of decentralized
service delivery that makes the water services more efficient and
ultimately tries to bring governance structures closer to the
people.1 The third and more recent phenomena is the complete
pri-vatization of water supply infrastructure which renders the
governance of the system separate from the citizen and the urban
municipality. These three systems of urban water governance are
linear in their respective developments.
Currently due to the multiple systems of management and the
development of how we consider waters role in the urban
environment, water is being revalued and re-presented as a scarce
economic good. With this shift, the triangular relationships
between the external pro-vider, the state and the citizen - the
three critical agents in the delivery of water - spatially pro-vide
new forms of political action with the ascent of the neo-liberal
paradigm. In this discus-sion the external provider is the private
transnational consortia operating out of self interest and
transcending governmental/political boundaries of resource
extraction and distribution.
When the corporation is given the leading role in fostering
connection between the citizen instead of the government, to mode
of interaction is one of customer management in order to alleviate
and resolve the economic constraints facing the state as well as
educating users
In the context of the state public power, Foucaults conception
of governmentality in ana-lysing the relational dynamics of power
within a decentralized landscape of water gov-ernance. Modes of
governmentality refer to forms of calculated practice [internally
and externally] in the government structure to direct categories of
social agency.5 The prac-tice of the everyday is normalized to
conform to a particular political frameworks, both public and
private. Foucault refers to this diffusion of government control
via a range of practices as the governmentalization of the state.
Political power in this instance is located beyond the state as
governmentality does not confine political activity to central
executive activities or formal law-making bodies.6 In the instance
of PPs, power assumes some degree of reciprocity, sublimating
opposition forces through persuasion, incen-tives with the aim of
earning consent.
-
27
Croyton Water Import/Filtration
Beckton Water Import/Filtration/Storage
Central London Storage Facility
Abbey Mills Water Processing Plant
Territories of water storage, filtration and import
infrastructure.
Hyde Park London
-
2E
FLOWSMETHODOLOGY
A part of my process as an architecture student, artist and
designer I feel the need to briefly explain the methodology I use
and is being deployed in this thesis. I will be candid. I am
inter-ested in concept and the ability for representation to
express concept.
Mapping and juxtaposing internal relationships to the thesis is
pertinent in understanding terri-tory. The rigor of working through
concept and artistic vision allows for graphic interpretation of
place and site.
The object of art - like every other product - creates a public
which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty. Production thus not
only creates an object for the subject, but also a subject for the
object. - Karl Marx
I find it more interesting to understadn the city no longer as
tissue, but more as mere coexistence, a series of relationships
between objects that are almost never articulated in visual or
formal ways, no longer caught in architectural connections. - Rem
Koolhass
-
29
Overlay of water scaffolding.
-
3TERRITORYThe global absurdity of our cities and lifestyles
depend on absurd situations and landscapes of infrastructure.
1ABSTRACT
Transnational Spaces of Water
2FLOWS
A Hydropolitical Morphology
B Infrastructural Space of Water
B Water as Commodity
D Territorialization
-
31
4SPECULATIONS
A Transnational Public Water Embassy
B Reclaiming the Water Tower/Storage
C The Transnational Water Tower
D Re-Drawing Water Territories
5NOTES
Glossary
Bibliography
3TERRITORY XXL
A Politics: Corporation + State + Citizenry
B Infrastructure: Water Tower
C Space: Human + Water
D Site: EU + London
-
3A
TERRITORYPOLITICS: CORPORATION + STATE + CITIZENRY
The surveillance of public behaviour in readying for March
against Private Services; London 2008.
A part of my process as an architecture student, artist and
designer I feel the need to briefly explain the methodology I use
and is being deployed in this thesis. I will be candid. I am
inter-ested in concept and the ability for representation to
express concept.
The object of art - like every other product - creates a public
which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty. Production thus not
only creates an object for the subject, but also a subject for the
object. - Karl Marx
I find it more interesting to understadn the city no longer as
tissue, but more as mere coexistence, a series of relationships
between objects that are almost never articulated in visual or
formal ways, no longer caught in architectural connections. - Rem
Koolhass
-
33
MAPPING GLOBAL WATER SUPPLY CORPORATISATIONCITIES SERVED BY
TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS
151
106
32
countries / resisted privately owned water supply
countries / private owned water supply Suez/Veolia/RWE
countries / private owned water supply ENDED
countries / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
cities / private owned water supply ENDED
cities / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
MAPPING GLOBAL WATER SUPPLY CORPORATISATIONCITIES SERVED BY
TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS
151
106
32
countries / resisted privately owned water supply
countries / private owned water supply Suez/Veolia/RWE
countries / private owned water supply ENDED
countries / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
cities / private owned water supply ENDED
cities / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
MAPPING GLOBAL WATER SUPPLY CORPORATISATIONCITIES SERVED BY
TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS
151
106
32
countries / resisted privately owned water supply
countries / private owned water supply Suez/Veolia/RWE
countries / private owned water supply ENDED
countries / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
cities / private owned water supply ENDED
cities / private owned water supply MAJOR ISSUES
-
With water infrastructure privatization in the late 1980s in the
EU new geopolitical agreements between countries and corporations
influenced the management of design and urban services as well
resource agreements. For example, the function of water stor-age
until 1990 was solved with the construction of water for other
uses. With new com-modification of infrastructure and the water
within it, design of water structures exclu-sively for storage
began.
Through the re-appropriation of architecture in a metaphorical
sense, a re-imagining of the disciplinary and professional
commitments of capital A Architecture to include tradi-tional
externalities of political, social, environmental, and various
other mediated con-tents. In doing so, infrastructures becomes the
site and subject. Seeking to re-animate architectural discourse
with urban relevance. The twentieth century was witness to both an
infrastructure boom and bust. It is the twenty-first century that
will need to determine not only how to address ineffective
infrastructures, but also new geopolitical and trans-national
situations and how to position new infrastructures and program that
confront urgent issues of climate, sustenance, and politics. The
opportunity for projecting a future infrastructure lies in bundling
multiple processes with spatial experiences. This project aims to
declare infrastructures as open systems, adaptive and responsive to
environ-ments and occupation of water territories. Operating at a
territorial scale, the project creates new moments of social
production and speculation.
The design of infrastructure is therefore open and anticipatory.
It has nothing to do with a specific message; rather, it is the
design of the system that makes it possible to send any number of
messages. It is for this reason that infrastructure is broadly
democratic. It represents the investment by the state into systems
that allow the movement and ex-change of information, without
specifying the content of that information or the range of
movement. This is not to say that infrastructures are utopian;
infrastructures are systems of control as well. They can be easily
regulated by switches and checkpoints, and shut down when required.
And the operation of infrastructural systems depends as much on
maintaining separation as it does in establishing connections. Yet
we know there is always something slightly out of control when
infrastructures proliferate.
The physical infrastructures of the twentieth century - those of
roads, rail, sewage, water, air, data, amongst others - have tended
to operate as singular and independent sys-tems. The
infrastructures of the twenty-first century must investigate
relationships and transparencies - to the pairing of infrastructure
and landscape, infrastructure and public amenities, infrastructure
and architecture.
CONTEXTEU WATER+INFRASTRUCTURE
-
35
VEOLIA
RWE
SUEZ
EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER
LONDON WATER SOURCE GEOGRAPHY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER
-
Copenhagen
1
2
4
3
9
10
5
7
8
6
11
12
13
17
14
15
16
18
19
20
2322
21
London [United Kingdom]Copenhagen [Denmark]Stockholm
[Sweden]Helsinki [Finland]Tallinn [Estonia]Riga [Latvia]Vilnius
[Lithuania]Warsaw [Poland]Prague [Czech Republic]Vienna
[Austria]Ljubljana [Slovenia]Bratislava [Slovakia]Budapest
[Hungary]Bucharest [Romania]Sofia [Bulgaria]ATHENS [Greece]Rome
[Italy]Madrid [Spain]Lisbon [Portugal]Paris [France]Brussels
[Belgium]Amsterdam [Netherlands]Berlin [Germany]
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
123456789
1011121314151617181920212223
The EU is a Nation State. The nation state is a state that
self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving
as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territo-rial
unit. The state is a geopolitical entity. The nation is a cultural
entity. The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational
independent institutions and intergovernmen-tally made decisions
negotiated by the member states. Because of this arrangement and
scale proximity of the countries politics, resources,
infrastructure, economics directly effect each regions based on
other regions.
CONTEXTEUROPEAN UNION [EU]
-
37
Copenhagen
1
2
4
3
9
10
5
7
8
6
11
12
13
17
14
15
16
18
19
20
2322
21
London [United Kingdom]Copenhagen [Denmark]Stockholm
[Sweden]Helsinki [Finland]Tallinn [Estonia]Riga [Latvia]Vilnius
[Lithuania]Warsaw [Poland]Prague [Czech Republic]Vienna
[Austria]Ljubljana [Slovenia]Bratislava [Slovakia]Budapest
[Hungary]Bucharest [Romania]Sofia [Bulgaria]ATHENS [Greece]Rome
[Italy]Madrid [Spain]Lisbon [Portugal]Paris [France]Brussels
[Belgium]Amsterdam [Netherlands]Berlin [Germany]
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
123456789
1011121314151617181920212223
-
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY
Over 75% of EU countries have privatized water infrastructure by
transnational corpora-tions. Under the World Trade Organization
Agreement on Urban Services, cities with pri-vatized urban
services/infrastructure or water supply infrastructure control is
dictated by the owning corporation. Due to the privatization and
the ability for trans-national consor-tia to operate resources
independent of government boundary. This is the new territory of
urban water. Water from France imported to London completely
bypasss the French government. The corporations owns the spring,
the corporation exports the water.
CONTEXTWATER PRIVATIZATION
-
39
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY
-
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY CONTESTED BY PUBLIC
The most contested cases of anti-water privatization have
occurred in four countries; Germany, France, Spain and England.
Just a year ago Paris went through a long twenty-year de
privatization process. The public demanded to take back their urban
infrastruc-ture. Recently cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have
experienced droughts and needed to further privatize in order to
provide adequate urban water infrastructures.
CONTEXTWATER PRIVATIZATION
$
Infrastructure
InfrastructureInfra
stru
ctur
e
-
41
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY
EU COUNTRIES PRIVATE WATER SUPPLY CONTESTED BY PUBLIC
-
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
VEOLIA
RWE
SUEZ
With failing economic states in the late 1980s - urban water
privatization provided a sound opportunity fir cities to improve
and provide better services. Certain corporations have agreements
and have drawn water boundaries between each.
CONTEXTWATER PRIVATIZATION
$
Infrastructure
InfrastructureInfra
stru
ctur
e
-
43
Copenhagen
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
VEOLIA
RWE
SUEZ
-
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
MAJOR TRASNNATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FLOWS
The territory of water infrastructure also opens an expanded
political repertoire. The most powerful players
[governments/corporations] have the capacity to make water
infra-structures, but equally important these infrastructures can
escape nominative designa-tions or documented events. As an action,
it can remain undeclared and discrepant, and as a medium, it can
determine what survives. The indeterminate space of water
infra-structural flows can offer insight into understandings of how
water, politics, and socialility can reprogram workings of our
current society.
CONTEXTINFRASTRUCTURE FLOWS
+
-
45CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
MAJOR TRASNNATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FLOWS
-
CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
SPHERES OF PRIVATIZATION IMPACT
SPHERES OF PRIVATE WATER IMPACT
400 Miles
200 Miles
100 Miles
50 Miles
London has one of the largest spheres of water space of EU
capital cities. The sphere of water influence describes the
geographic area of water need and thus invisible govern-ance of
water.
CONTEXTSPHERES OF INFLUENCE
-
47CAPITAL CITIES IN EU COUNTRIES
SPHERES OF PRIVATIZATION IMPACT
SPHERES OF PRIVATE WATER IMPACT
400 Miles
200 Miles
100 Miles
50 Miles
-
3B
TERRITORYINFRASTRUCTURE: WATER TOWER
Curiously, infrastructure is a new word. The Oxford English
Dictionary identifies its first use in 1927. The word only achieves
real currency in the 1980s after the publication of a scathing
public policy assessment entitled America in Ruins: The Decaying
Infrastructure, which raised many of the issues raised here. To
understand the technical systems that support a society - roads,
bridges, water supply, wastewater, flood management,
telecommunications, gas and electric lines - as one category, it
was first necessary to see it fail.is inherently architectural and
design based. These should be the new issues of the architect in
the urban environment, as these are the design questions that are
emerging currently.
Although infrastructure has the inherent ability to understand
itself as a continuous glob-al complex and unchanging in physical
disposition based on place, the typologies within the system change
varying on environmental, social, and political conditions. These
con-ditions stipulate how the water is transported, where the water
and infrastructure need to be spatially placed in relation to
source and urban area, and the differing policies which regulate
the cleansing of water differently throughout the globe.
Control Point/Access Point
Infrastructure Border Condition
-
49
Water importation and filtration facility. Germany.
Thames Water Corporation main office. It also acts as a water
tower.
-
3C
TERRITORYSPACE: HUMAN AND WATER
Currently due to the multiple systems of management and the
development of how we consider waters role in the urban
environment, water is being revalued and re-presented as a scarce
economic good. With this shift, the triangular relationships
between the external provider, the state and the citizen - the
three critical agents in the delivery of water - spa-tially provide
new forms of political action with the ascent of the neo-liberal
paradigm. In this discussion the external provider is the private
transnational consortia operating out of self interest and
transcending governmental/political boundaries of resource
extraction and distribution.
When the corporation is given the leading role in fostering
connection between the citizen instead of the government, to mode
of interaction is one of customer management in order to alleviate
and resolve the economic constraints facing the state as well as
educating users to appreciate water as a scarce ecological
resource. The relationship between town and na-ture - a key focus
of political ecology - is significantly recast with the
naturalization of scarcity and commodification of water.2 The
outcome of this mode of governance when examined at a urban level
deepens the struggle for access to water.
Urban political ecology can provide useful critical tools for
rethinking processes surrounding the politics of distribution and
production of water.3 In addition key questions about the
socio-physical production of water as socio-nature are often
ignored in distributional debates but become more evident in the
critical political.4 The triangular relationship between the
service user, provider and state is mediated, strategized and
routinized.
Globally, cities water supply systems operate in three systems
of management. The first being a completely public system operated
by public government agencies. The second system becomes a step
between completely public governance to completely private
governance. With the expansion of cities and industrial growth,
cities sought to charter private government institutions to manage
specific public functions of the urban water system. Private
partnerships were established the growth of Public-Private
Partnerships [PPPs] in the delivery of essential services to urban
residents which has been articu-lated as a form of decentralized
service delivery that makes the water services more ef-ficient and
ultimately tries to bring governance structures closer to the
people.1 The third and more recent phenomena is the complete
privatization of water supply infrastructure which renders the
governance of the system separate from the citizen and the urban
municipality. These three systems of urban water governance are
linear in their respec-tive developments.
-
51
-
3D
TERRITORYSITE: EU + LONDON
Arcachon
LondonCoryton
Windsor
Wales
Water Imporatation by Pipeline
Water Imporatation by Tanker
Paris
Marseilles
The site of this thesis is simultaneously the transnational
territory of water infrastructure in its forms of
extraction/movement/utility.
The site is also that of the water tower. The place of operation
in the urban environment.
The site is the representation of a manifestation with a
representation of the hydrological territory.
The city has traditionally been analyzed as a contiguous urban
space undergoing its own dynamics and problems. Since the
mid-1980s, however, authors such as Harvey [1989], Castells [1996],
and Sassen [1994, 2001] have started to forcefully include the
dynamics of globalization in studying the city, claiming that it is
now necessary to em-brace a wider societal space to understand
urban change. For these authors, globaliza-tion can be
deconstructed as a worldwide space of flows, emerging into a
network so-ciety and allowing a massive dispersal of flows of
capital, information, and other physical streams around the world.
And cities, conversely, have become sites where these new dynamics
are re-centralized, serving as agglomeration centers where the
space of flows is coordinated and managed. Sociologists claim that
with globalization, major cities such as London, have become nodes
and hubs at the crossroads of global circuits of people,
information, capital, and the goods that traverse them.
-
53
Arcachon
LondonCoryton
Windsor
Wales
Water Imporatation by Pipeline
Water Imporatation by Tanker
Paris
Marseilles
-
2 Inch Pipe 600 M
iles
1800
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
000
Leng
th [
mile
s]
Decade Installed
Londons Water Supply piping system.
11,360 Miles of Pipe from the Reservoir to the Tap.
-
55
[For Scale: Just so you know, this contin-ues 1.5 In off the
page]
6 Inch Pipe 600 M
iles
8 Inch Pipe 2600 M
iles
12 Inch Pipe 1950 M
iles
16 Inch Pipe 220 M
iles
20 Inch Pipe 550 M
iles
252 Inch Pipe 2950 M
iles
72 Inch Pipe 165 M
iles
60 Inch Pipe 140 M
iles
54 Inch Pipe 110 M
iles
48 Inch Pipe 260 M
iles
36 Inch Pipe 175 M
iles
24 Inch Pipe 220 M
iles
30 Inch Pipe 150 M
iles
-
London is simultaneously a city facing crisis due to continual
growth of urban existence without recognition of the ecologically
changing environment and contains strong politi-cal denial towards
the social infrastructure of the city at various scales. Using
London one can begin to understanding the conflicting impacts of
human occupation and the situations sought to be subverted.
Intertwining social and infrastructural functions would reveal
invisible processes into the public realm and ability to humanize
the lifeblood of our urban existences.
The ironicism of Londons water supply is evident. Firstly, due
to de-industrialization in London the city has to pump out 60
million gallons of grey water a day to keep the city form flooding.
Secondly due to the local geological composition, water does not
filtrate far into the ground, thus a high water table. Thirdly,
imported water come from three loca-tions geographically, Wales,
France and the Thames Estuary. The fascinating juxtaposi-tion in
this situation is that water come from these places due to the
private corporations who own the aquifers subjected to
transnational law, and upon arrival in Londons outer filtration
plants the water is subjected to local law.
Importation happens by two means - taker ship and pipeline. The
complexities of hydros-patiality are exemplified in this situation
of convergence.
Countries Infrastructural Issues Due to Private Consortia
EU Country with Private Water Supply
EU Country with Public Water Supply
Riga
Vilnius
London
Paris
Madrid
Rome
Berlin
Helsinki
Stockholm
Copenhagen
Athens
Sofia
Bucharest
Vienna
Budapest
Tallinn
Prague
Warsaw
Bratislava
Ljubljana
Lisbon
Amsterdam
Brussels
,-.).-/!,)01*,2!
,-.).-/!,)0/1,-3!
,-.).-/!,4*54673
,-.).-/!,4*54673
.-/!,/,!-/5!7/
.-/!,860/,69*/617
.-/!,0/1,-3!
/,!-/5!7/):-26;6/
-
57
-
Circular water retention fields in the desert. Egypt. NASA
100%
Managed by a Transnational Corporation
-
59
Water Import from France
Water Import from Wales
Water Import within England
32%
66.5% 12.5%
Source: The 2010 Envoronmental Agency London Water Report
-
Current Ring Lines around London and their location to water
towers.
-
61
-
63
-
4SPECULATIONSThe situations of urban water are complex.
Speculative discourse for design is great.
1ABSTRACT
Transnational Spaces of Water
2FLOWS
A Hydropolitical Morphology
B Infrastructural Space of Water
C Water as Commodity
D Territorialization
E Methodology
-
65
4SPECULATIONS
A Urban Water Territories
C Water Embassy
D Water Vault
5NOTES
Glossary
Bibliography
3TERRITORY XXL
A Politics: Corporation + State + Citizenry
B Infrastructure: Water Tower
C Space: Human + Water
D Site: EU + London
-
CONTEXTCENTRE / PERIPHERY
-
67
-
40%INFRASTRUCTURE
30%ECOLOGICAL TERRAIN
15%GOVERNMENT POWER
15%CORPORATE POWER
100%PROGRAM: Water Embassy
Water Storage
Urban Water Meter
Public Water Access
Ecologcial Landscape
Filtration/Flood Surface
Living Museum
Ministry of Water
Thames Water Offices
Corporation Chamber
Public Meeting Space
1 Existing 2 Existing
3 Existing 4 Existing
5 New 6 New
Elements become Secure / Private Functions
Add Programatic Elements to CityBlank City Canvas
Enclave Condition and Non-Transparent
Break Enclave + Programmatic Seperation Mix Program in Urban
Centre + Create Public Awareness
TRANS-NATIONAL CORPORATION COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURAL COMPLEX
GOVERNMENT COMPLEX
LONDON UK
Airport
City of London
Greater London
Thames Water Corporation OfficesGreater London Authority
Offices
Beckton Filtration / Storage Plant
The concept of the project is to first break the singularity and
autonomous enclave of water infrastructure importation at the
London Beckton Water Filtration Plant. Secondly make a commentary
on the political dynamics between the corporation, government and
public citizenry. This is done by mixing water importation,
filtration, and storage infra-structure with public and political
program. The concept of a Water Embassy best de-fines new political
contexts the project seeks to give to the public constituency.
An Embassy us usually denoted as the office of a countrys
diplomatic representatives in the capital city. This embassy twists
the program to include the demanded transparency and shift from
governmental control to the actual situation - a control
administered by the government but controlled by the
corporation.
The form becomes the action.
The public citizenry infiltrate.
PROGRAMCONCEPT
BECKTON WATER PLANT GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY / THAMES WATER
-
69
40%INFRASTRUCTURE
30%ECOLOGICAL TERRAIN
15%GOVERNMENT POWER
15%CORPORATE POWER
100%PROGRAM: Water Embassy
Water Storage
Urban Water Meter
Public Water Access
Ecologcial Landscape
Filtration/Flood Surface
Living Museum
Ministry of Water
Thames Water Offices
Corporation Chamber
Public Meeting Space
1 Existing 2 Existing
3 Existing 4 Existing
5 New 6 New
Elements become Secure / Private Functions
Add Programatic Elements to CityBlank City Canvas
Enclave Condition and Non-Transparent
Break Enclave + Programmatic Seperation Mix Program in Urban
Centre + Create Public Awareness
TRANS-NATIONAL CORPORATION COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURAL COMPLEX
GOVERNMENT COMPLEX
LONDON UK
Airport
City of London
Greater London
Thames Water Corporation OfficesGreater London Authority
Offices
Beckton Filtration / Storage Plant
-
OMA
-
71
CENTRALIZED WATER STATION AT BECKTON
THAMES BARRIER PARK
-
The Water Embassy redefines the embassy as an institution no
longer exclusively dedi-cated to the representation of politics,
but as an information store where all potent forms of flowsnew and
oldare presented equally and legibly. In an age where resources and
larger territorialities of infrastructure are transnational, it is
the simultaneity of gov-ernments and corporations, more
importantly, the curatorship of their content through public means
that make this new redefinition of embassy vital - a new coupling
of infra-structure and architecture.
PROGRAMHYBRID PROGRAM
40%INFRASTRUCTURE
30%ECOLOGICAL TERRAIN
15%GOVERNMENT POWER
15%CORPORATE POWER
100%PROGRAM: Water Embassy
Water Storage
Urban Water Meter
Public Water Access
Ecologcial Landscape
Filtration/Flood Surface
Living Museum
Ministry of Water
Thames Water Offices
Corporation Chamber
Public Meeting Space
1 Existing 2 Existing
3 Existing 4 Existing
5 New 6 New
Elements become Secure / Private Functions
Add Programatic Elements to CityBlank City Canvas
Enclave Condition and Non-Transparent
Break Enclave + Programmatic Seperation Mix Program in Urban
Centre + Create Public Awareness
TRANS-NATIONAL CORPORATION COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURAL COMPLEX
GOVERNMENT COMPLEX
LONDON UK
Airport
City of London
Greater London
Thames Water Corporation OfficesGreater London Authority
Offices
Beckton Filtration / Storage Plant
-
73
40%INFRASTRUCTURE
30%ECOLOGICAL TERRAIN
15%GOVERNMENT POWER
15%CORPORATE POWER
100%PROGRAM: Water Embassy
Water Storage
Urban Water Meter
Public Water Access
Ecologcial Landscape
Filtration/Flood Surface
Living Museum
Ministry of Water
Thames Water Offices
Corporation Chamber
Public Meeting Space
1 Existing 2 Existing
3 Existing 4 Existing
5 New 6 New
Elements become Secure / Private Functions
Add Programatic Elements to CityBlank City Canvas
Enclave Condition and Non-Transparent
Break Enclave + Programmatic Seperation Mix Program in Urban
Centre + Create Public Awareness
TRANS-NATIONAL CORPORATION COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURAL COMPLEX
GOVERNMENT COMPLEX
LONDON UK
Airport
City of London
Greater London
Thames Water Corporation OfficesGreater London Authority
Offices
Beckton Filtration / Storage Plant
40%INFRASTRUCTURE
30%ECOLOGICAL TERRAIN
15%GOVERNMENT POWER
15%CORPORATE POWER
100%PROGRAM: Water Embassy
Water Storage
Urban Water Meter
Public Water Access
Ecologcial Landscape
Filtration/Flood Surface
Living Museum
Ministry of Water
Thames Water Offices
Corporation Chamber
Public Meeting Space
1 Existing 2 Existing
3 Existing 4 Existing
5 New 6 New
Elements become Secure / Private Functions
Add Programatic Elements to CityBlank City Canvas
Enclave Condition and Non-Transparent
Break Enclave + Programmatic Seperation Mix Program in Urban
Centre + Create Public Awareness
TRANS-NATIONAL CORPORATION COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURAL COMPLEX
GOVERNMENT COMPLEX
LONDON UK
Airport
City of London
Greater London
Thames Water Corporation OfficesGreater London Authority
Offices
Beckton Filtration / Storage Plant
-
PROGRAMURBAN CONCEPT
-
75
NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
VS
CORPORATE SOVEREIGNTY
-
BECKTON FILTRATION PLANT
SITE + GLA
THAMES WATER
SITECENTRAL LONDON
-
77
BECKTON FILTRATION PLANT
SITE + GLA
THAMES WATER
-
SITE
MARKETS
RAIL TO PARIS
CITY HALL
TANKER CAPACITY IN THAMES RIVERSITECENTRAL LONDON
-
79
SITE
MARKETS
RAIL TO PARIS
CITY HALL
TANKER CAPACITY IN THAMES RIVER
-
SITELONDON
-
81
-
83
-
En lieu of the framework and parameters set up in previous
sections, the first of three speculative projects in the redefining
of political and corporate boundary based off water tower
locations. The water tower not only represents a typology within
the water infra-structure system - it also acts in territorial
fashion - an access node of the larger system which represents a
place within the territory of hydrospatiality.
What if architectural exploitation of the water tower typology
could provide a framework to rethink districting urban environment
based off water locations and proximity thus informing the citizens
of greater knowledge about the infrastructural system and political
processes.
4A
SPECULATIONSURBAN WATER TERRITORIES
-
85
-
4B
SPECULATIONSWATER EMBASSY
The water embassy is possibly the most cohesive speculation
considering the complex framework and parameters set up in this
project. This speculation creates and architec-ture which allows
the public to undermine the corporate flows of control. Working
with the transnational spaces of Londons water sources this
construct would appoint water diplomats from all regions were water
is extracted. These diplomats are public citizens.
The water tower becomes architectural precedent. The embassy
would create a verticali-ty of program commenting on power
structures while simultaneously working horizontally to represent
the flow of liquid infrastructures.
-
87
-
4C
SPECULATIONSWATER VAULT
The water vault is the essential absurdity of transnational
private consortias interface with public governance.
The speculation proposes an architecture which completely
embraces the wall condition - instead of in the ground or within
city fabric - it hovers above the city for all to see. Im-porting
daily the freshest water, it is transparently imported into the
architecture delving in into an unclear ambiguous, but completely
total control of the water system.
The vault becomes an airlifted enclave. It becomes absurd and
rude - yet completely beautiful in our current condition.
-
89
-
5NOTESLiquid flows are the modern city. Design for the
absurd.
1ABSTRACT
Transnational Spaces of Water
2FLOWS
A Hydropolitical Morphology
B Infrastructural Space of Water
C Water as Commodity
D Territorialization
E Methodology
-
91
4SPECULATIONS
A Urban Water Territories
C Water Embassy
D Water Vault
5NOTES
Glossary
Bibliography
3TERRITORY XXL
A Politics: Corporation + State + Citizenry
B Infrastructure: Water Tower
C Space: Human + Water
D Site: EU + London
-
5NOTESGLOSSARY
Access The ability to inhabit an area/space granted by an
individual or group.
Activism Action by groups, agencies or individuals using
processes to influence change by dis-rupting the status quo and
revealing better visions for society.
City The physical fabric of urban processes embodying the
geographic, political, cultural, social and economic.
Community The ability for a collection of individuals to form a
cohesive grouping supported by other systems, networks,
infrastructures.
Control The ability to manipulate access and direct
movements/flows within every aspect of soci-ety. When control fail,
crisis takes over.
Corporatism The aggregation of non-human systems of management
into a collective body
Crisis A decisive moment when tensions or instabilities peak and
change becomes inescap-able. Crisis demands adjustment in
perception and in modes of action.
Dehumanization The process of stripping away human qualities,
such as denying others their individuality and self-esteem.
-
93
Ecology Relationships between living organisms and their
non-living counterparts.
Emergent In the process of coming into being. A pattern or
condition of new significance.
Citzenry The many people on our planet who exist in urban
environments.
Event A moment in time which defines place.
Globalization The making possible of international
influence.
Spatial Relating to space or a network of spaces.
Network A series of dependent systems of environmental,
land-use, communication and service directories. Networks consists
of nodes [communities] and vectors {routes].
Nonhuman Upon treating human characteristic as a product, the
result is a reduction, thus non-human.
Territory An area of knowledge, activity or land which is
governed by a jurisdictional entity or insti-tution. A political
situation which has physical manifestations.
Urban The process which support, govern and run the city.
Water A flowing substance consisting of two elements, hydrogen
and oxygen. It is also a term full of ambiguity and illustrates the
complexity of modern day existence - both psycho-logically and
physically.
-
5NOTESBIBLIOGRAPHYBoelens, Luuk. The Urban Connection: An
Actor-Relational Approach to Urban Plan-ning. 010 Publishers, 2009.
Print.
Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The
Experience of Modernity. Simon and Schuster, 1982. Print.
Cauter de, Lieven. The Smithsons: The Independent Ensemble of an
Urban Model, the Rise of the Mobility Society, from Utopia to
Heteroptopia. Archis 2, 2000. Print.
Czerniak, Julia and Hargreaves, George. Large Parks. Princeton
Architectural Press, 2007. Print.
Ghosn, Rania. New Geographies 02 Landscapes of Energy. Harvard
University Press, 2010. Print.
Gould, Stephen. The Pandas Thumb: More Reflections on Natural
History. New York WW Norton, 1980. Print.
Kemp, Petra. You Are The City. Lars Muller Publishers, 2001.
Print.
Knechtel, John. Alphabet City : Water. MIT Press, 2009.
Print.
Kolind, Hanne. Nature Strikes Back: Man and Nature in Western
Art. Narayana Press, 2009. Print.
Lefebvre, Henri. Critique of the Everyday Life. Verso
Publishing, 2008.
Lefebvre, Henri with Rabinovitch, Sacha. Everyday Life in the
Modern World. The Ath-lone Press, 2000. Print
Maria, Kaika. City of Flows: Modernity, Nature and the City.
Routledge, 2005. Print.Mendez, Ana. UrbanAccion. Impresores, 2009.
Print.
-
95
Escobar, A. [1995] Encountering Developments. Princeton NJ.
Princeton University Press. Print.
Dean, M. [1999] Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern
Society. London: Sage. Print.
Starr, P. [1988] The Meaning of Privatization. Yale Law and
Policy Review, 6: 6-41. Print.
Lefebvre, H. [1996] The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell. Print
Pirie, M. [1988] Privatization, Theory, Practice and Choice.
Aldershot: Wildwood House. Print.
Harvey, D. [1996] Justice, Nature and the Geography of
Difference. Oxford: Basil Black-well. Print.t.
Swyngedouw, E. [1997] Power, Nature, and The City: The Cnquest
of Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanization. Environmental
Planning A, 29. Print.
Maria, Kaika. City of Flows: Modernity, Nature and the City.
Routledge, 2005. Print.Mendez, Ana. UrbanAccion. Impresores, 2009.
Print.
Mostafavi, Mohsen with Doherty, Gareth. Ecological Urbanism.
Lars Muller Publishers,2010.
Ramos, Stephen and Turan, Neyran. New Geographies 01 After Zero.
HarvardUniversity Press, 2009. Print.
Viljoen, Andrew. CPULs: Continous Productive Urban Landscapes.
ArchitecturalPress, 2005. Print.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2000. Liquid Modernity, Wiley-Blackwell,
London. Print.
-
Liquid infrastructures aims to examine the emergence of the
infrastructural - to articulate it and bring it to bear effectively
on the social role and agency within design. Designers are
increasingly being compelled to shape larger contexts and scales,
to address questions related to infrastructure, urban and
ecological systems, cultural and regional issues. These questions
which have been associated to the confines of other domains require
design engagement and articulation. Analysis in architecture,
landscape, urbanism and planning of emergent urban morphologies and
global changes on the spatial dimension - comes by way of social
anthropology, human geography, economics and political networks.
Liquid infrastructures is interested in extending these arguments
by asking how design can have a more active role and transformative
impact on the forces shaping contemporary urban reali-ties. The
delicate relationship between the physical and social, form and
context, the very large and very small - it is important to explore
the formal repertoire of the architecture and the agency of the
designer within the wider contexts which produce the built
environment and subsequently shape society.
?
LIQUID INFRASTRUCTURE
-
97
The physical infrastructures of the twentieth century such as
roads, rail, sewage, water, air, data, amongst others - have tended
to operate as singular and independent systems. The infrastructures
of the twenty-first century, if they are to respond to impending
urgen-cies with respect to resources and global densification of
the urban environment, must investigate relationships and
transparencies - to the pairing of infrastructure and land-scape,
infrastructure and public amenities, infrastructure and
architecture.
Liquid infrastructure utilizes water to illustrate and examine
the flows that administer the this process: flows of social power,
labor, infor-mation, capital, and resources that produce the
contemporary urban landscape.