Abstract Silver Lake Reservoir is a 97-acre site embedded in the urban fabric of Los Angeles. It will be taken off-line as a potable water supply in 2008 due to pollution damaging the quality of the water. The new reservoir will be buried in Griffith Park to the North, while Los Angeles will leave the Silver Lake Reservoir completely full for only aesthetic purposes. While this reservoir sits full with 800 million gallons of water from the hundreds of miles of aqueducts that feed the desert, the nearby LA River discharges a million gallons of water a day, with about forty thousand passing by the tangent point to the reservoir. Through historical research, our project team found that the LA River used to feed the reservoir. The pipes still exist, offering opportunity to restore this link. The EPA’s 303d list states that the Los Angeles River contains 43 pollutants. Los Angeles pulls water from Colorado River, while taking its own water, polluting it and discharging it into the ocean. This project turns the reservoir site into a water refinery, and a pollution ecology research center with a political water institute. Infrastructure used to be called public works; placing this waterworks in the fabric of Los Angeles gives it a civic presence. This public space can be used to shape the practices of water use, illustrate the ramifications of technology on our water resources, and shape water use values among California citizens. In 2004, the U.S. National Research Council released a document citing an alarming lack of planning for the nation’s water sources. Dealing with water is an opportunity for architects and landscape architects to become leaders: shaping values and practices in public works. In this way, public space can be relevant to shared socio-political issues. The Silver Lake Reservoir project is a demonstration of this goal. How can we justify keeping Silverlake reservoir full of clean, potable water from the aqueducts, while polluting the Los Angeles River? Why send out 100 million gallons a day of tainted water to the ocean, while pulling in water from hundreds of miles away? Is it possible to use landscape design to create an awareness of the ramifications of technology on our natural resources? Can landscape design in public space provide opportunities to display not sustainable, but regenerative civic practices?
silver lake water refinery los angeles, ca 90039