Water+Works

Water+Works

Coupling Infrastructure & Amenity: Towards an Integrated, Decentralized Wastewater Infrastructure Network.

Lindsay Duthie B.Des, Ontario College of Art and Design, 2008 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in The Faculty of Graduate Studies, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Architecture Program.

Committee: Mari Fujita, B.A., M.Arch Joe Dahmen, B.A., M.Arch Melissa Higgs, M.Arch, AIBC, MRAIC We accept this report as conforming to the required standard:

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Joe Dahmen, GPI Mentor

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Mari Fujita, GPII Chair University of British Columbia, April 2015. Š Lindsay Duthie

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ABSTRACT

Growing urban populations have prompted increased demand for community-scaled infrastructure, leading to investigations into ways that landscape can become an operative agent in infrastructural functions. This thesis envisions a decentralized network of communityintegrated wastewater treatment facilities. It proposes an architecture that responds to water through material, structure and program, and anticipates the flexibility of evolving social and programmatic configurations.

How can we reconsider water infrastructure as integrated into the urban fabric rather than belonging to the periphery? How can human experience be fused with civic infrastructure? By introducing a coupling typology that connects infrastructure and public amenity, the proposed programs experience mutual economic, social and ecological benefits. Coupled infrastructures that address multiple issues become a model for building civic amenities, generating richer and more dynamic urban conditions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................iii LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................................vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................................xi 1. CONTEXT: RAPID URBANIZATION..........................................................................................02 2. WATER + INFRASTRUCTURES...............................................................................................10 3. WATER + THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE....................................................................................20 4. TECHNICAL INQUIRY...............................................................................................................32 5. PRECEDENTS..........................................................................................................................46 6. DESIGN PROPOSAL...............................................................................................................56 WORKS CITED..............................................................................................................................93

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE DESCRIPTION | SOURCE

1.0

Diagram: Urban Density Development. Google Earth. Accessed October 2014.

1.2

Diagram: Map of World Cities with a population over 1,000,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Megacity

1.3

Diagram: Urban and Rural Population of the World, 1950-2050. From the UN World Urbanization Prospects:

1.4

Diagram: Water Consumption. From the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

2.1

Photograph: Light at the end of the tunnel. http://www.123rf.com/photo_10331981_lightat-end-of-round-tunnel.html

2.2

Diagram: Centralized, Decentralized, and Distributed Networks. Baran, Paul. On Distributed Communications, I. Introduction to Distributed Communications Networks.

2.3

Diagram: Plans for the decentralization of Greater Helsinki, Finland, and Greater Tallin, Estonia. Saarinen, Eliel 1943.

3.1

Photograph: Panna Meena Ka Kund Stepwells. Edward Burtynsky from the series ‘Water’

3.2

Photograph: The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, by Louis Kahn. Salk Institute photo. http://www.salk.edu/

3.3

Painting: Leonardo da Vinci, Drawing from the Deluge Series. c. 1517. Pedretti, C., The Drawings and Misc. Papers of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of HM The Queen at Windsor Castle, Vol. I (1982): Landscapes, Plants and Water Studies.

3.4

Drawing: Frigidarium. Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

3.5

Drawing: Caldarium. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers.

1898.

3.6

Drawing: Tepidarium. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

3.7

Drawing: Plan and Section, Abhaneri Step Well. Livingston, Morna. Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India. Princeton Architectural Press.

3.8

Stepwell, Nahargarh Cistern, Jiapur, India. Edward Burtynsky from the series ‘Water’, 2010

4.1

Photograph: Annacis Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. By Author

4.2

Photograph: A Mechanical Treatment System: Aerial view of an activated sludge wastewater treatment lagoon. http://www.hydrotecsolutions.com/activated-sludge-plant.html

4.3

Photograph: An Aquatic System: Aerial view of an aerated wastewater treatment lagoon. http://www.sites.mech.ubc.ca/~pougatch/lagoon.html

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FIGURE DESCRIPTION | SOURCE

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4.4

Photograph: A Terrestrial Treatment System: Aerial view of a constructed wetland for ‘polishing’ treatment. http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/pdf/ConstructedWetlands-Complete.pdf

4.5

Diagram: Mechanical Systems: Vertical Biological Reactors. By Author.

4.6

Diagram: Mechanical Systems: Activated Sludge. By Author.

4.7

Diagram: Aquatic Systems: Stabilization Lagoons. By Author.

4.8

Diagram: Aquatic Systems: Aerated Lagoons. By Author.

4.9

Diagram: Terrestrial Systems: Constructed Wetlands. By Author.

4.10

Diagram: Terrestrial Systems: Septic Tanks. By Author.

5.1

Photograph: The Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn. Goldberg, Jeff. http://www.esto.com/photographers/jeff-goldberg

5.2

Vignette: SOMA falls. http://kuthranieri.com/soma-falls/

5.3

Diagram: SOMA Falls, technical diagram. http://kuthranieri.com/soma-falls/

5.4

Photograph: False Creek Energy Centre. http://www.pechetandrobb.com/cec.html

5.5

Composite Photograph: The Salton Sea, in California’s Imperial Valley. http://lateraloffice.com/ WATER-ECONOMIES-2009-10

5.6

Diagram: Pool typology. http://lateraloffice.com/WATER-ECONOMIES-2009-10

5.7

Photograph: Sherbourne Common. Shai Gil. http://www.archdaily.com/250877/sherbourne-common-pavilion-teeple-architects/

5.8

Vignette: BIG’s Waste to Energy Plant. Bjarke Ingles Group.

5.9

Diagram: Technical Diagram. Bjarke Ingles Group.

5.10

Photograph: The Therme Vals, Peter Zumthor. http://www.archdaily.com/13358/the-thermevals/

5.11

Photograph: The Water Temple, Tadao Ando. http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Water_Temple

6.1

Diagram: CRD Core Municipalities. Based on CRD Website. By Author.

6.2

Diagram: CRD Population Density. Based on CRD Website. By Author.

6.3

Diagram: Site Conditions. By Author.

6.4

Diagram: Program Possibilities. By Author.

6.5

Diagram: Map of Greater Victoria. Original Map Source: GeoBC. By Author.

6.6

Diagram: Urban Agriculture. By Author.

6.7

Diagram: City Lighting. By Author.

FIGURE DESCRIPTION | SOURCE

6.8

Diagram: Aquatic Centre. By Author.

6.9

Composite Photograph: Site Context. From Google Earth. By Author.

6.10

Drawing: Site Plan. By Author.

6.11

Vignette: Looking down wastewater treatment corridor towards building. By Author.

6.12

Vignette: View from corridor out to Victoria Harbor. By Author.

6.13

Diagram: Three Systems. By Author.

6.14

Vignette: View of cold plunge pool and living systems. By Author.

6.15

Diagram: Technical Diagram. By Author.

6.16

Drawing: Site Section Perspective. By Author.

6.17

Drawing: Plans. By Author.

6.18

Vignette: Interior view looking East. By Author.

6.19

Vignette: View through to living system from thermal hot rock room. By Author.

6.20

Diagram: Concept Diagram. By Author.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Mari Fujita, for her thoughtful guidance and encouragement, and for challenging me the whole way. I’d like to thank Joe Dahmen for inspiring ideas and discussions at the beginning of it all, and I’d like to thank Melissa Higgs for her insight, knowledge, and constructive criticism. I would also like to acknowledge Morgan Brown at Whole Water who helped clarify my technical approach and inspire possibility.

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1. CONTEXT: RAPID URBANIZATION

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Fig. 1.2 - Map of World Cities with a population over 1,000,000. From August 2008.

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POPULATION GROWTH AND DENSIFICATION

According to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects, cities will add over 2.5 billion people in the next 40 years, with 90 percent of this growth coming from cities in emerging economies.1 Today, there are now more people living in urban areas than rural ones.

(See fig.1.2) And by 2050, it’s estimated that nearly three-quarters of our population will live in cities. The world’s urban population will face numerous challenges in meeting the needs of housing, infrastructure, transportation, and energy. John Wilmoth, the director of the UN’s population division, states that “Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century. Our success or failure in building sustainable cities will be a major factor in the success of the post-2015 UN development agenda.” 2 Rising populations demand an increase in the infrastructures that support our cities, and sustainable urbanization is key to successful development.

Providing basic infrastructures for a densely settled urban population is typically cheaper and less environmentally damaging than providing a similar level of services to a dispersed rural population.3

Fig. 1.3 - Urban and Rural Population of the World, 1950-2050. From the UN World Urbanization Prospects.

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CONSUMPTION AND USAGE

Cities are, in a sense, organized systems of production and consumption. With the world’s population becoming increasingly urban, consumption of resources is intensified in these centers. Per capita rates of food, energy, and other resource consumption have grown even faster than population, accelerating already massive human demands for resources.4 Canadians are one of the world’s highest consumers of water, second only to the United States, largely due to industrial use and lack of conservation methods (See fig. 1.4). Industry is Canada’s largest water consumer.5 The average Canadian uses 335 liters of fresh water each day, which is a stark contrast to the average Swede or Franc who use half that. In developing countries, 20 to 30 liters of water per person per day are considered adequate for basic human needs, which in Canada is typically the amount of water used in one washing machine cycle.

In 2001, more than 2600 Canadian industrial facilities reported the discharge of chemicals into water bodies.6 Uncontaminated fresh water is a diminishing resource. At the same time urban water supplies are threatened by contamination and depletion, water is squandered.

Using treated drinking water to flush toilets and water lawns is a shameful waste. Increased industrial demand for water, domestic appliances, and the popularity of a pristine lawn which requires extensive irrigation, have all contributed to spiraling water usage.7

Between the years 1994 to 1999, one in four Canadian municipalities experienced issues with water. Water shortages were reported due to insufficient provisioning of water resources as a result of degrading water infrastructure. In 2001, The Federal Commissioner of The Environment and Sustainable Development declared that heavy water use had severely stressed the ecological regions of Southern

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Canada. The stress was associated with the intensification of urban development followed by an increase of water demand that resulted in the degrading environmental conditions.

In Canada, 84% of the population lives in a narrow southern band, while 60% of our water supply flows north to the Arctic Circle.8 A growing population, and a growing thirst for water are being concentrated in expanding metropolitan areas, and are forcing water regulators and policy makers to find ways to stretch available supplies even further. There is a widespread belief that Canada’s water supply is extraordinarily abundant, partly because of its vast number of lakes and rivers and also because of waters low cost to consumers. Undervaluing this precious resource leads to overuse. The apparent abundance of fresh water is deceptive, and the capacity for lakes, rivers and even oceans to purify the wastes that are dumped into them is more limited than we once thought.

Fig. 1.4 - Water Consumption, from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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WATER SYSTEMS IN CANADA

In large urban centers in Canada, the supply of drinking water has been well managed for the last century, with complex, watertight systems that meet high standards. Although, the same cannot be said of wastewater. In many Canadian cities, combined drains and storm sewer systems carried raw sewage directly to nearby water bodies. Beaches in Toronto and Vancouver were and sometimes still are routinely closed during the height of summer due to high bacteria counts, which make them unsafe for swimming. In St. Johns, Halifax, and Victoria, meanwhile, municipal sewers drained untreated wastewater directly into the harbors, and this in a country that holds a reputation for both pristine lakes and an engineering industry that specializes in building water purification systems in many parts of the developing world.9 Over the past decade, some of Canada’s waterfront cities have made significant moves toward reducing this kind of environmental degradation. Toronto has been implementing a separated sewer system designed to catch and treat storm water overflow, which has helped clean up the city’s beaches. Both Halifax and St. Johns had been battling with similar overflow problems, which had been contaminating their harbors, killing shellfish, as well as creating visual pollution.10 In both cases, tourism and urban quality of life became the pressing forces that aided in the implementation of improved water infrastructures.

As of 2005, Victoria remains the only holdout. In 1992, the majority of the city’s residents voted to continue to allow the dumping of untreated wastewater into the harbor, as city officials assured the public that the ocean currents dissolve and dissipate the waste material to non-toxic levels. Since then, BC’s capital has faced tourism boycotts, complaints from Washington State, and threats of regulatory action from Ottawa.11

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WATER: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

An emerging water crisis is on the horizon. Future uncertainties such as climate change, peak oil, and peak water are causing a focus on sustainable and resilient strategies to meet these challenges. Urban systems are being reimagined in new ways that take a multidisciplinary approach by exploring ways in which systems can share resources and operate more like natural organisms.

Today, scarcity of water is one of the most severe environmental problems. Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough fresh water on the planet for our population, but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed.12 By 2030, it is expected that half the worlds population will be living in areas with acute water shortage. This is not just a problem affecting arid or third world nations – in Canada, water levels are at historic lows in some of the Great Lakes, and drought is an increasing problem in parts of the prairie provinces. Water shortages will continue with rising temperatures, drought, population growth, and urban sprawl.

It is predicted that the next century will be marked not with feats of water engineering, but instead feats of water efficiency.

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2. WATER + INFRASTRUCTURES “Infrastructural work recognizes the collective nature of the city and allows for the participation of multiple authors. Infrastructures give direction to future work in the city not by the establishment of rules or codes (top-down), but by fixing points of service, access, and structure (bottom-up).�

-Stan Allen, Infrastructural Urbanism

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INTRODUCTION

Water is both a fundamental necessity and a threat to human life.

The control and distribution of the quantity, quality, and location of water are influential to urban form and the city’s inhabitants. Water management systems control irrigation capacity for agriculture, allocates water for industrial use, facilitates the movement of waste, and creates pleasurable landscapes, all of which allow for an expanded quality of life.

INFRASTRUCTURE TODAY

Our current infrastructural systems have several defining characteristics. Firstly, their systems are often hidden from view, unnoticed until there is a problem. They operate in the background, relied upon by everyone and noticed by virtually no one. An investigation of the current understanding of infrastructure in North American is perhaps best exemplified though a series of accident and failures rather than current planning or design. We are reminded of them when we are placed at risk.

For example, the 2013 Alberta floods, when rising water levels caused catastrophic flooding, placing many communities under evacuation with over 100,000 people displaced. Or, the 2003 blackout in Ontario and the Northeastern United States, caused by a software bug which cascaded into widespread distress on the electric grid. The blackout affected an estimated 10 million people in Ontario and 45 million people in eight US states.

When such incidents occur, we are suddenly awakened to the reality of how infrastructure can threaten our lives, strip us of livelihoods, and diminish our enjoyment of life.1

It’s second defining characteristic, is that the design and engineering of infrastructure has historically been conceived in isolation, independent of the overall urban vision.2 Infrastructure has traditionally been engineered

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to meet a set of expectations. Post WWII, the impact of water on urban form has largely been designed, implemented, maintained, and expanded by engineers.3 These solutions have shaped an expectation of what a modern city is, but they are not without their consequences. Ecologies, social structures, and water consumption patterns are all affected by these ‘hard’ systems. The fact that designers and planners have become separated from the realm of infrastructural design is of concern. These disciplines have been concerned with water, waste, and energy generating in prior decades. Take for example Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City proposal of 1898, which contains three types of water: Drinking-water is provided for by deep wells and distributed via underground pipes, wastewater is also conveyed by underground pipes to agricultural lands located nearby. Local rain and surface water is collected in canals and reservoirs and are described as “perfectly adapted for watering streets and gardens, for flushing sewers and drains, as well as for fountains”. This water infrastructure serves multiple purposes as “a system of drainage, of irrigation, of transport, of motive power, of recreation, and of ornament”. 4 However, this interest waned with the widespread adoption of centralized pipe and wastewater solutions devised by engineers. By WWII, these supply systems and drainage networks had become the accepted state of the art technology that was designed by engineers.5 Therefore, design factors such as urban context, aesthetics, public engagement and quality of life became overlooked. Perhaps the urban designer or planner had little concern over water infrastructures at this time because of the fact they were buried or concealed.

Today, there is a growing concern of urban water infrastructures in urban design. Designers are exploring approaches that examine how water infrastructures interact with the water-cycle, urban form, and social and economic structures. It is a shift from engineering solutions towards insights from multiple perspectives.

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AGING INFRASTRUCTURE

The most critical threat from the aging infrastructure crisis in the city is the combined sewer and stormwater drains that exist in many North American cities. Combined sewers unnecessarily bring stormwater to wastewater treatment facilities to be treated, expending energy and overwhelming the facilities. The problem is further heightened when the combined overflow is dumped into municipal waterways. Cities respond to each water crisis with narrow solutions which address immediate needs at minimum costs, but ignore the need to promote water conservation and to overhaul overtaxed and outdated collection, storage, and distribution systems.6 Green roofs and bylaws promoting increased permeable surfaces are beginning to make an impact in our cities. The successful management of water in the city requires comprehensive efforts and the perception that storm drainage, flood control, water supply, water conservation, waste disposal, and wastewater treatment are all facets of a much broader system.7

WATERFRONT CITY

One of the most enduring figures of urban life is the symbiotic relationship between cities and water. Human settlements root on the shores of major rivers, ports, lakes and oceans, relying on water for sustenance, transportation, trade, and strategic defense. Natural ports made cities such as New York, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Halifax, Hong Kong, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, and Sydney.8 These harbors grew with the industrial revolution, gaining railway access and warehouse facilities. In the latter part of the 20th century, these areas adopted new uses besides just industrial operations, and became overrun by highways for the transportation of goods as well as commuter travel. In recent decades, cities have been reconnecting with their waterfronts, seeking out new relationships between the city and their shorelines.

Today, with the enormous volume of manufactured goods that are shipped

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around the globe, as well as a tourism and cruise ship industry, ports still take on multiple roles in urban economies.

WORKING CONCEPTUALIZATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure acts as a framework for urban development. It is embedded within the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the city. As described by Pierre Belanger, it is the collective system of public works that support a nations economy. Infrastructure articulates its role within our cities by creating cleaner, faster, and more efficient systems. However, modes of infrastructure may become obsolete, redistributed, and reinvented. The contingency of today’s infrastructure necessitates the system to be designed for flexibility and adaptability.9 Belanger goes on to describe that this moment in history demands a reconsideration of the conventional, centralized, and technocratic practice of infrastructure and the discipline of civil engineering that have overshadowed the landscape of bio- physical systems—as a decentralized infrastructure—that predates the dynasty of modern industry.

How can a different understanding of infrastructure jumpstart a new era of remediation and redevelopment across North America?10 William Wenk imagines an alternative to our now standard models of stormwater infrastructure in his essay Towards and Inclusive Concept of Infrastructure: “…we can rethink all components of urban stormwater systems, from individual storm drain inlets to trunk storm sewers, to create surface stormwater systems that are functional and beautiful. We can accommodate both naturalistic and formal expressions and the use of native and nonnative species. We can enrich leftover spaces such as the edges of parking lots, which can become wonderful wetland or conventionally planted environments. We can build on the scientific research and engineering talents of related professionals to create landscapes that function in specific, quantifiable ways, and that are integral with the fabric of the city.”11

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LOOKING FORWARD

The role of public infrastructure in our cities is changing, with the integration of cleaner energy systems, changing attitudes about water conservation, and evolving ideals of what constitutes a public space.

With this, there emerges a new set a performance criteria for existing and proposed infrastructural projects. A fresh point of view is needed to mange cities with outdated infrastructure. A focus on infrastructural systems is key to a more vibrant and functional 21st century city. In his preface to Landscape Infrastructure, Gerdo Aquino’s intention is laid out: “...to question the ongoing viability of these single-purpose corridors by proposing that a multifunctional approach is more in tune with contemporary society…. Landscape becomes the medium through which to formulate and articulate solutions for the integration of infrastructure with viable programming that can address the pressing issues facing many cities around the world.”12 Infrastructure must be reimagined for the advancement of our cities, our culture, and sustainable lifestyles into the future.

NETWORKS

Paul Baran was a Polish engineer who described the distinction between centralized, decentralized and distributed networks in the 1960’s (See fig. 2.2). This work was inspired by the need to design a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. Infrastructures possess patterns of coverage and distribution. They are organized at different scales to meet different needs. By implementing smaller infrastructure networks at a regional scale, neighborhoods are more likely able to be self-sufficient.

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CENTRALIZED

DECENTRALIZED

DISTRIBUTED

Fig. 2.2 - Paul Baran’s Network Diagram.

THE CITY AS AN ORGANIC SYSTEM

James Corner writes that “apparently incoherent or complex conditions that one might initially mistake as random or chaotic can in fact be shown to be highly structured entities that comprise a particular set of geometric and spatial orders, in this sense cities and infrastructures are just as ecological as forests and rivers”13 Here he describes a departure from a modern centralized conception of the operative qualities of urbanism and infrastructure, towards a more organic and holistic approach. Corner argues that landscape is particularly suited to deal with the ongoing complex nature of cities with “its capacity to theorize sites, territories, ecosystems, networks, and infrastructures, and to organize large urban fields”.14

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TOWARDS DECENTRALIZATION The process of applying flexibility and protection to urban developments must mean a physical, economic, and spiritual reconditioning of the urban territory at large, and a stabilization of those results gained. This must be the primary aim of the process. The actual result of the process, however, is that the unprotected compactness of the urban body evolves toward an open system of several protected community units. In other words, the actual result is: “decentralization”. –Eliel Saarinen, The City.15

Cities should be considered more as a living system or ecology than a machine. Eliel Saarinen was writing about decentralization in the 1940’s. He was advocating for mixed-use areas to be physically, economically and spiritually self-sufficient. Saarinen formed a dialogue which viewed cities less as machines and more as organic developments of human habitation.

Infrastructure acts as the intermediary between nature and city – we must think of it as a more diverse decentralized system as opposed to the more singular entity as it exists today. Infrastructural decentralization has begun to manifest itself in a variety of ways, notably with the emerging guidelines that prescribe things such as porous paving systems and on site water capture and treatment, such as LEED or Living Building Challenge. Living Building Challenge requires projects to be net-zero water. It is in meeting this requirement and this philosophy that we can begin to understand where water systems are headed.

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Fig. 2.3 - Eliel Saarinen’s plans for the decentralization of Greater Helsinki, Finland (left), and Greater Tallin, Estonia (right)

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3. WATER AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE “Water is a source of life, power, comfort, and delight, a universal symbol of purification and renewal. Like a primordial magnet, water pulls at a primitive and deeply rooted part of human nature. More than any other element besides trees and gardens, water has the greatest potential to forge an emotional link between man and nature in the city.�

-Anne Whiston Spirn

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ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF WATER

As Charles Moore describes in his book Water and Architecture, the key to understanding the architecture of water is to understand the water of architecture: the physical laws which govern its behavior, the ways in which it engages our senses, how its symbolic presence relates to us as human beings.1 Opportunities to observe these qualities of water in an urban setting have diminished, as visible water has nearly disappeared from sight and is instead relegated to a series of pipes and reservoirs that exist largely below grade. Architecture acts as the mediator between natural and constructed form, and plays a role in how we experience water in space. The fluid, dynamic, and transparent qualities that water possesses are in contrast to the rigid nature of our built environment. Yet, architecture presents a way to manifest these qualities in space.

Ice, liquid, or steam may be used within architecture; in these conditions, water may flow, freeze, lie still, steam, or fall, providing both pragmatic and poetic interpretation and inspiration. As an architectural element, water holds powerful visual and physical qualities.

Water affects the design of every building, site, and city in aesthetic, functional, and symbolic ways. In an age when water has become increasingly domesticated and decreasingly appreciated, architecture allows for a phenomenological opportunity to experience water and space. This section explores the experiential relationship shared by water and architecture and examines the potential for using the qualities of water as an expressive element in design.

WATER AS SYMBOLISM

More than anything else, water is a source and a great symbol for life.

In China, earth has commonly been viewed as a living organism. Chinese watercolorists often included water in their landscapes as a sign of life, as pools, rivers, and waterfalls. Water is the central source of the ideal landscape.2 Water as a symbol of life is seen in our designed world as well. Fountains

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symbolize both the emergence and disappearance of fresh water. When water bubbles up from a spring, it speaks of the origin, or the source of life; and on the other end of the cycle, as water seeps back into the earth, it speak of the cyclical return to its source. Every human civilization has depended on fresh water for sustenance so it’s source was of particular importance. Great fountains occupied important urban centers, symbolizing feats of engineering, civic accomplishment, and a source of vitality for the community. Even depictions of Eden contain a bubbling fountain sourced from a divine spring, representing the wellspring of life within the lush biblical paradise.

Despite the role of water as a depiction for life it has also been seen as a symbol of death. As nourishing and vital as it can be, it can also be turbulent, dark, and cold. Until modern times water was feared as an evil force.3 Leonardo da Vinci studied the motions of water. He examined its menacing power, as it rose over riverbanks and swallowed up defenseless towns. His charcoal and ink drawings of floods and storms are patterns of fanatical swirls – dark and foreboding, evoking the fears that rushing waters can produce. (Fig.6) As da Vinci studied cataclysmic storms during his deluge series, he wrote about the futile struggles of man and animal against waters destructive capacity. He described water as “ il vetturale di natura”; the vehicle of nature, believing water to be to the world what blood is to our bodies.4 He writes: Water is sometimes sharp and sometimes strong, sometimes acid and sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet and sometimes thick or thin, sometimes it is seen bringing hurt or pestilence, sometime health-giving, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different places through which it passes. And as the mirror changes with the colour of its subject, so it alters with the nature of the place, becoming noisome, laxative, astringent, sulfurous, salty, incarnadined, mournful, raging, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, greasy, fat or slim. 5

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Fig. 3.2 - Water as an element of architecture: The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, by Loius Kahn.

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Fig. 3.3 - Leonardo da Vinci, Drawing from the Deluge series. c. 1517

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THE WATERS OF ROME

In the past, communities expressed great civic pride in providing clean water to their city centers. Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations designed aqueducts as the first kind of municipal water systems. These massive infrastructures brought freshwater into the city from miles away. Through the power of architecture freshwater entered and enriched the basic human activities of drinking, bathing, and laundering. Roman aqueducts required sophisticated engineering and were powered entirely by gravity to carry water over long distances. However amazing the aqueducts were technically, their existence exceeded mere utility by creating new relationships between infrastructure and Roman culture.

Roman baths, or, thermae, were integral to daily life in ancient Rome. These complexes, fed by the aqueducts, served as a gathering point for socializing, relaxing, and cleansing. Some contained gymnasiums, masseuse stations, and hot pools. Roman bathhouses contained a series of rooms that got progressively hotter. Most contained an apodyterium - a room just inside the entrance where the bather stored his clothes. Next, the bather progressed into the frigidarium (cold room) with its tank of cold water, the tepidarium (warm room), and finally the caldarium (hot room). Because wealthy Romans brought slaves to attend to their bathing needs, the bathhouse usually had three entrances: one for men, one for women, and one for slaves. The preference of symmetry in Roman architecture usually meant a symmetrical faรงade.6 Roman bathhouses often contained a courtyard, or palaestra, which was used for exercise, and most often outlined by a colonnade. Their walls depicted frescoes of trees, birds, and other pastoral images. Sky-blue paint, gold stars, and celestial imagery adorned interior domes. Statues and fountains decorated the interior and exterior. They were statement makers, with elaborate mosaics and massive marble columns. By the second century public baths were increasing in size. As baths became larger and more popular concerns over hygiene also grew. Bath water was drained and replaced

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The 1898 edition of Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities provided illustrations envisioning the rooms of the Old Baths at Pompeii: Fig. 3.4 - Top: Frigidarium Fig. 3.5 - Left: Caldarium Fig. 3.6 - Right: Tepidarium

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regularly, because of the extreme demand of the huge new bathing complex. In Rome, draining baths was done using expanded aqueducts, as the water was readily available.

Attending the baths was practiced among a wide variety of social classes, making it a very communal activity. In many ways, the baths were the ancient Roman equivalent of community centres.7 There were libraries, rooms for poetry readings, and places to buy and eat food. They were spaces to converse and banter, make social connections, to pursue recreational activity as well as sealing business deals. Bathing facilities became a way of life for the roman civilization, their advanced architecture and engineering provided for a human experience that was central to their culture.

STEPS TO WATER: WEST INDIAN STEPWELLS

Water in the architecture of India can be traced back to it’s earliest times, and has played an important role in the culture. From the fifth to the nineteenth centuries, the people of Western India built stone cisterns to collect water of the monsoon rains and keep it accessible for the remaining dry months of the year. These stepwells guaranteed a year-round supply for drinking, washing, and irrigation to surrounding villages, particularly in the arid states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, where the water table is deep below the earth’s surface. Stepwells consist of two main components — the well with Escher-like steps leading into it, reaching as deep as thirteen stories below grade, and the adjoining multi-level chambers that were built to offer a cool retreat. Over the centuries stepwell construction evolved so that they were, by the 11th century, complex feats of engineering, architecture, and art.

Builders of the stepwells developed their own diverse architectural visions by adorning the wells with elaborate carvings of deities,

27

intricate sculptures, carved columns, and lattice-like walls. Proportions in relationship to the human body were used in their design, as they were in many other structures in Indian architecture.8 Their exceptional detailing reflects the regions history and ecology. The stepwells became an integral part of western Indian communities, as sites for drinking, washing and bathing. However, the stepwells served much more than their utilitarian purposes, they evolved into places for social gathering; particularly for the women whose task it was to gather the water.

The stepwells would have provided a place of respite in their otherwise regimented lives. It was also the women who offered gifts to the goddess of the well and prayed for her blessings.9 The stepwells were also sites for sacred ceremonies and festivals. The rituals of cleaning and prayer are embedded within Hindu culture, the stepwells playing a pivotal role in hosting this cultural phenomenon. The stepwells stand witness to a time when water and its architectural elaboration were inextricably intertwined with the social and spiritual lives of communities.

Since most stepwells have minimal presence above the surface of the ground other than a low masonry wall, a sudden encounter with one of these cisterns generates a sense of great surprise and wonder.

Once inside these structures, their telescoping views, stepped pavilions, and play of light and shadow are equally disorienting. They acted as architectural and cultural monuments, a kind of spiritual infrastructure.

This ingenious system for water preservation continued for a millennium.10 With the arrival of the 19th century British rulers, stepwells were deemed unhygienic and their role was replaced with modern plumbing, taps, and storage reservoirs. While some remain in decent condition, many of these ancient stepwells became garbage dumps, were mined for their stone, or were left to decay. These masterpieces of architecture and engineering were monuments of, and to, civic life. They exemplify a system of infrastructure that epitomizes a sustainable harvesting of natural resources, infused with cultural and spiritual significance.

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Fig. 3.7 - Plan and Section, Abhaneri Step Well. From Steps to Water, Morna Livingston.

29

Fig. 3.8 - Stepwell, Nahargarh Cistern, Jiapur, India. Photograph by Edward Burtynsky, 2010.

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4. TECHNICAL INQUIRY Wastewater treatment is a complex milieu of environment, politics, culture, and science. 1 This section serves as a technical investigation into the current processes and practices of water treatment, in order to inform the project and work toward a sustainable design that integrates the treatment and reuse of water in a way that is beneficial to both humankind and the environment.

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Society has progressed in the way it manages wastewater. In early times, wastes were largely ignored. As urbanization began to increase, the sources of diseases such as cholera were realized, and sewage treatment began. By the early twentieth century, waterborne diseases were under control, and the objective of wastewater treatment was to minimize the unpleasant conditions of sight and smell. In the latter portion of the twentieth century, systems emerged that viewed the nutrients and water as resources rather than waste product. Constituents in treated wastewater effluent such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium began to be used for a variety of purposes, including irrigation of golf course, green spaces, forests and farmland, the creation of wetlands, and utilization in hydroponic systems. Our understanding of the problems caused by harmful bacteria increased and enabled science-based designs for beneficial re-use of the nutrients in the wastewater effluents.2

WATER TREATMENT

Almost all aspects of life create wastewater, from industrial processes to domestic organic waste. Most of our waste is diverted to a wastewater treatment facility. The water treatment procedure can be broken down into four individual stages: preliminary, primary, secondary and tertiary treatment.

•

•

33

Preliminary: Screening and filtering is part of the initial process. This involves the filtering of water through ‘screens’: large plates or metal bars, which stop large materials from entering the treatment system.

Primary: The screened wastewater enters into the primary treatment process which typically is in the form of large tanks. This process removes all the remaining solids from the water by mean of a

•

•

grit chamber and sedimentation tank. The collected solids are concentrated and dealt with in an environmental manner as a whole.

Secondary: This stage is the most varied component of the process, as there are a number of methods often employed. Many use natural processes, but in a controlled environment sped up by a range of mechanical procedures. The main two are biological filtration and activated sludge, which use bacteria and micro-organisms to further separate the water from the sludge and convert nonsettleable solids to settleable solids Tertiary: This “polishing” phase is a process that often uses sand or gravel as filters. Fine membrane separation and disinfection via UV light are both tactics employed when the discharges are destined for bathing waters of shellfish growing areas.

WASTEWATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES

Wastewater treatment technologies may be classified into three principal types: mechanical, aquatic, and terrestrial. 3 Some systems use multiple technologies in their treatment process.

Mechanical treatment systems use a combination of physical, biological, and chemical processes to achieve treatment objectives. These are essentially natural processes in a constructed artificial environment.

Mechanical treatment technologies use a series of tanks, pumps, blowers, screens, and other mechanical components to treat wastewater. These systems are effective where land is at a premium; for example, in urban areas.

Aquatic treatment systems use lagoons: facultative, aerated, and hydrograph controlled release. Lagoon based treatment systems may be supplemented by additional pre or post systems using constructed

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wetlands, which are the most successful method of polishing the treated effluent from the lagoons. These systems act as a biofilter, removing sediments and pollutants such as heavy metals from the water. Different species of aquatic plants have different rates of heavy metal uptake, a consideration for plant selection in a constructed wetland used for water treatment. Constructed wetlands are of two basic types: subsurface-flow and surface-flow wetlands.

Terrestrial treatment systems include slow-rate overland flow, slow-rate subsurface infiltration, and rapid infiltration methods. The advantage of these systems is their positive impact on sustainable development practices. In addition to wastewater treatment and low maintenance costs, these systems may yield additional benefits by providing water for groundwater recharge, reforestation, agriculture, and/or livestock pasturage. Terrestrial systems make use of the nutrients contained in wastewater; plant growth and soil absorption convert biologically available nutrients into biomass, which is then harvested for a variety of uses including methane gas production.

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Fig. 4.2 - A Mechanical Treatment System: Aerial view of an activated sludge wastewater treatment lagoon.

Fig. 4.3 - An Aquatic System: Aerial view of an aerated wastewater treatment lagoon.

Fig. 4.4 - A Terrestrial Treatment System: Aerial view of a constructed wetland for ‘polishing’ treatment.

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Mechanical Systems VERTICAL BIOLOGICAL REACTORS Vent Air Compressor

Head Tank

Clarifier

Influent Effluent Air

OXIDATION ZONE Extraction Line

MIXING ZONE

SATURATION ZONE

Bioreactor (~95m)

Fig. 4.5 - Diagram by author.

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EXPLANATION

APPLICATION

IMPLICATIONS

This is a highly efficient treatment method, which uses an in-ground vertical shaft to provide aerobic biological treatment.

Subsurface, aerobic and selfcontained means the visual and odor impact will be much less than conventional systems.

Can be applied in both local scale (community) and large scale (large urban) settings.

Can vary in size.

Spatial: Requires little land area, typical footprint is 10 - 20% of conventional systems Automation: Complex technology, requires technically skilled human operation Formal: Vertical system, largely below grade

ACTIVATED SLUDGE

Primary Clarifier

Aeration Basin

Secondary Clarifier

Influent

Effluent

De-watering & Disposal Return Sludge To Waste Sludge Tank

Fig. 4.6 - Diagram by author.

EXPLANATION

APPLICATION

IMPLICATIONS

Highly efficient treatment method.

Uses air and a biological mixture composed of bacteria and protozoa.

Can be applied in both local scale (community) and large scale (large urban) settings.

Can vary in size.

Spatial: Can be small (packaged plants) or large to suit industrial areas.

Automation: Requires technically skilled human operation.

Formal: Successive ponds, and requires sludge disposal area.

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Aquatic Systems STABILIZATION LAGOONS

Advanced Facilitative Pond

High Rate Pond

Maturation Pond Algal Settling Ponds

Influent

Effluent

Fig. 4.7 - Diagram by author.

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EXPLANATION

APPLICATION

IMPLICATIONS

Sometimes also called facultative pond technology - is a natural method for wastewater treatment. The system consists of shallow man-made basins comprising a single or several series of anaerobic, facultative or maturation ponds.

• Requires large area of land • Low capital cost, and low operation cost • Low technical manpower required

This system is well suited to areas with high intensity of sunlight and temperature, since these are key factors for the efficiency of the removal process.

Spatial: large, open area Automation: minimal Formal: successive ponds

AERATED LAGOONS

Aeration Basin

Primary Clarifier

Settling Zone

Influent

Effluent To Waste Sludge Tank De-watering & Disposal

Fig. 4.8 - Diagram by author.

EXPLANATION

APPLICATION

IMPLICATIONS

An aerated lagoon or aerated basin is a holding and/or treatment pond provided with artificial aeration to promote the biological oxidation of wastewaters.

• Can be suspended or facultative • Requires relatively little land area • Requires mechanical devices to aerate the basins • Lower operating cost in terms of operators and chemicals

Functions well as a municipal model - one third of all wastewater systems in the US operate in this model.

Spatial: Requires relatively little land area Automation: requires mechanical aeration Formal: Can be a suspended mixed lagoon or facultative lagoon

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Terrestrial Systems CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS

Gas Discharge

Sediment Accumulation

Water Inflow

Water Outflow

Constructed Wetlands: -Organic Soil -Microbial Fauna -Algae, Plans, Microorganisms

Fig. 4.9 - Diagram by author.

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EXPLANATION

APPLICATION

IMPLICATIONS

Constructed wetlands emulate the features of natural wetlands, and act as a biofilter, removing sediments and pollutants such as heavy metals from the water.

Best used where suitable native plants are available.

Minimal capital cost, with low operation and maintenance costs.

Can vary in size

Spatial: Can be large or small, integrated into park setting Automation: Requires periodic removal of excess plant material

SEPTIC TANKS

Access Lids Grade Line

Inlet Baffle

Scum Layer

Outlet Baffle

Clear Water

Sludge

Fig. 4.10 - Diagram by author.

EXPLANATION A small-scale onsite sewage treatment system common in areas with no connection to main sewage pipes

APPLICATION • Can be used by individual households • Easy to operate and maintain • Can be used in rural areas

IMPLICATIONS Spatial: Small Automation: Must be pumped occasionally and requires a landfill Formal: Below Grade

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RESOURCE RECOVERY

Wastewater heat recovery has been gaining popularity in North America in the last decade, and is an effective and valuable renewable energy source. Examples of resources include: Heat: Heat produced from raw sewage can be captured at the wastewater treatment plant and used to heat the facility. Excess heat energy can also be distributed throughout the local community to heat homes and buildings using a District Energy System.

Solids in wastewater are a valuable source of nutrients. The solids treatment process provides several opportunities for resource recovery: Biogas: Residual solids are treated using anaerobic digestion to stabilize and reduce solids, kill pathogens, and generate methane gas (biogas) for use onsite in the plant or offsite in the natural gas distribution system.

Phosphate: During the residual solids treatment process struvite, which is a form of phosphate, can be extracted and then used in fertilizer.

Biosolids: Biosolids are wastewater residual solids that have been treated to reduce the volume, kill pathogens and have much of the water removed.

Biosolids can be used as a fuel substitute for cement kilns or for other beneficial uses.

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5. PRECEDENTS Built and unbuilt projects provide a set of standards and examples from which to begin to generate a design. They are to be both critically examined and used as a source of inspiration. These precedents were collected on the basis that they resonate with the project conceptually in design and execution.

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PRECEDENTS Steven Holl – Whitney Water Purification Facility Polshek Partnership - Newton Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Kuth Ranieri Architects - SOMA Falls* Walter Francl Architecture, and Pechet and Robb Art and Architecture Ltd - False Creek Energy Centre* Perkins + Will - Dockside Green BNIM Architects - Omega Centre for Sustainable Living James Corner - Fresh Kills Lateral Office - Water Economies* PFS Studio - Sherbourne Common* SeoAhn Total Landscape -Cheonggyecheon River Restoration BIG - Waste to Energy Plant* Peter Zumthor - Therme Vals * Diller + Scofidio – Blur Building Tadao Ando -Water Temple *

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Fig. 5.2 - SOMA Falls

SOMA Falls Architects: Kuth Ranieri Architects Speculative Location: Mission Bay, San Francisco

Fig. 5.3 - SOMA Falls, technical diagram

This proposal addresses San Francisco’s immediate water-related challenges. The water treatment park in Mission Bay comprises green wall filtration systems, constructed wetlands, a new urban recreational waterfront, and a network of boardwalks to bridge China Basin and reconnect the downtown district with the South of Market Area (SOMA).

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Fig. 5.4 - False Creek Energy Centre

False Creek Energy Centre Architects: Walter Francl Architecture, and Pechet and Robb Art and Architecture Ltd Location: Vancouver, Canada Completed: 2010

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The Neighborhood Energy Utility (NEU) uses waste thermal energy captured from sewage to provide space heating and hot water to new buildings in the surrounding Southeast False Creek neighborhood.

This captured energy eliminates more than 60% of the global warming pollution associated with heating buildings.

Fig. 5.5 - The Salton Sea, in California’s Imperial Valley

Fig. 5.6 - Pool typology

Water Economies/Ecologies Architects: Lateral Office Location: Salton Sea, CA, USA 2009-2010

The American Southwest is the site of one of the nation’s most unusual contradictions. It is both the driest region and home to the most rapidly increasing populations.

This proposal establishes the Salton Sea as a site for water harvesting. It aims to create working public architecture that operates at a very large regional scale, though it employs micro-scale, incremental soft infrastructure.

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Fig. 5.7 - Sherbourne Common

Sherbourne Common Architects: PFS Studio, Teeple Architects Location: Toronto, Canada Completed: 2011 Sherbourne Common, transformed from a brownfield site along a neglected stretch of Toronto’s waterfront, transcends the conventional definition of a park by interweaving a stormwater treatment facility with landscape, architecture, engineering, and public art.

The conceptual design for Sherbourne Park is built upon the abstraction of an iconic Canadian lake’s edge landscape, composed of the woods, the water, and the green. As a key component of the redevelopment of Toronto’s waterfront, the park is about inspiring civic space, flexible uses, play, and sustainability.

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Fig. 5.8 - Sherbourne Common

Waste-to-Energy Plant Architects: BIG Location: Copenhagen, Denmark TBC: 2016

Fig. 5.9 - Technical Diagram

Located in an industrial area near the city center the new Waste-to-Energy plant will be an exemplary model in the field of waste management and energy production, as well as an architectural landmark in the cityscape of Copenhagen.

The building is conceived as a destination in itself, reflecting the progressive vision of a new type of waste treatment facility. “The Waste-to-Energy plant with a ski slope is the best example of a city and a building which is both ecologically, economically and socially sustainable�, -Bjarke Ingels.

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Fig. 5.10 - Interior View

The Therme Vals Architects: Peter Zumthor, with Marc Loeliger, Thomas Durisch and Rainer Weitschies Location: Graubunden Canton, Switzerland Completed: 1996

The Therme Vals is a hotel and spa in Canton in Switzerland. This space was designed for visitors to luxuriate and rediscover the ancient benefits of bathing. The combinations of light and shade, open and enclosed spaces and linear elements make for a highly sensuous and restorative experience.

“Mountain, stone, water – building in the stone, building with the stone, into the mountain, building out of the mountain, being inside the mountain – how can the implications and the sensuality of the association of these words be interpreted, architecturally?”

Peter Zumthor

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Fig. 5.11 - Water Temple

Water Temple (Shingonshu Honpukuji) Architects: Tadao Ando Location: Kobe, Japan Completed: 1991

The Water Temple, originally for the Shingon Buddhist Sect, is approached from a long uphill path traversing the original temple compound and cemetery.

One is then directed, indirectly, through a simple series of two gesturing white-washed concrete walls of light and shadow that eventually lead one to what seems like a pool of water. The pool itself is filled to its outermost perimeter, forming a boundless horizon line about which it infinitely reflects its surroundings of mountains, sky, rice paddies and bamboo groves. The stillness of the water has a meditative effect and evokes a spiritual cleansing.

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6. DESIGN PROPOSAL

This project operates at two scales: a regional and a local. The regional component consists of a network schematic, situated in the greater Victoria area of BC . Victoria remains only metropolitan region in Canada still dumping untreated wastewater into the ocean, and has a conflicted history of proposed water management systems

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SAANICH

OAK BAY ESQUIMALT

VICTORIA

CAPITOL REGIONAL DISTRICT - CORE MUNICIPALITIES

Fig. 6.1 - CRD Core Municipalities

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0

1

2km

CRD - AREA POPULATION DENSITY

0

1

2km

PEOPLE PER ACRE >12 5-12 1-5

Fig. 6.2 - CRD Population Density

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GREATER VICTORIA: A DECENTRALIZED WASTEWATER TREATMENT NETWORK

Most cities use a centralized approach to water infrastructure.

Centralized facilities function in a relatively linear manner, they are energy intensive, complex to upgrade, and entire populations place total reliance on them. This centralized configuration misses out on a wide range of opportunities for making cities more resilient. Moving towards more distributed, integrated, and multi-functional wastewater treatment systems can provide cities with district energy and heat, and valuable materials such as reclaimed water and soil amendment. Beyond this, decentralized treatment systems allow for incremental growth of communities. They allow for flexible and adaptable community planning, and can be designed to suit their context. They create opportunities for civic engagement. By coupling decentralized water infrastructures with civic amenities, this allows the programs to benefit from one another in terms of energy tradeoffs, and also allows them to function at a scale in which infrastructure can be reconsidered as something engaging and opportunistic, as opposed to hazardous and undesirable.

A proposed network for greater Victoria serves at a scale of 20,000 people. This was derived from looking at density and projected growth in the greater Victoria area, and by examining existing district energy systems such as the false creek energy centre in Vancouver. At this scale, a distributed network consisting of 12 nodes is established. Each node with its corresponding amenity program must take into consideration its level of economic viability, system efficiency, ecological balance, and economies of scale, all in relation to urban context and population base.

We can begin to explore different programmatic opportunities in relation to site conditions, density, economic considerations, and the most suitable water treatment technology for the location (fig 6.3 & 6.4).

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SPACIOUS LEISURE EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE COASTAL / WATERFRONT UNDERUTILIZED SPACE

CENTRAL URBAN

CENTRAL RESIDENTIAL

    

   

  

        









 



   



 

  

Fig. 6.3 - Exploring Site Conditions



       





Fig. 6.4 - Exploring Program Possibilities

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Fig. 6.5 - Map of Greater Victoria

61

123°24'

123°23'

123°22'

123°21'

123°20'

123°19'

123°18'

123°17'

123°16'

48°31'

123°25'

48°30'

H

A

R

O

S

T

R

A

I

T

48°29'

SENIORS RESIDENCE

SKATING RINK +

RECYCLING FACILITY

RECREATION CENTRE

48°28'

SAANICH

DAYCARE

CITY GARDENS + PARK

BREWERY / CAFE

48°27'

OAK BAY

PUBLIC LIBRARY

URBAN

ESQUIMALT

AGRICULTURE

48°26'

HIGH DENSITY HOUSING

VICTORIA AQUATIC CENTRE

CENTRE FOR CITY LIGHTING CORRIDOR

THE ARTS

48°24'

48°25'

+ PUBLIC ART

IT JUAN DE FUCA STRA

LEGEND Civic Amenity Building Public Library Seawall Bike & Walk Ferry Route Roads Combined Sewer Overflow Wastewater Outfall Park Space Marine Protected Zone Proposed WWT & Amenity Site

0

Greater Victoria 1:25,000

1km

2 km

EXPANDED TYPOLOGIES

Three of the proposed typologies are expanded into sectional diagrams. These are: Urban Agriculture, City lighting, and an Aquatic Centre. (See fig. 6.6-6.8). The examples were selected be expanded because they best represent a wide spectrum of opportunity: they have varying degrees of technical complexity, varying realms of civic engagement, and best exemplify some of the most productive opportunities for coupling the infrastructure and program. For example: in Urban Agriculture, water is re-used for food production. In a city lighting schematic, energy extracted from the wastewater treatment process is used for powering lights and the excess water is used for park irrigation and street cleaning. In an aquatic centre or community centre, water re-use is used for both interior and exterior program elements (pools, reflection ponds) and thermal energy is captured from the wastewater treatment process for heating various pools and program areas.

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1. SITE CONDITION: UNDERUTILIZED SPACE AMENITY PROGRAM: URBAN AGRICULTURE

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

WASTEWATER FROM:

YEAR-ROUND PRODUCE FOR 3000

LAUNDRY ~15% TOILETS ~20%

TREATED WATER FOR HYDROPONIC IRRIGATION

SHOWERS & SINKS ~65%

RESOURCE RECOVERY:

GREYWATER FOR BUILDING AND COMMUNITY BIOGAS & BIOFUEL THERMAL ENERGY FOR HEATING & COOLING

}

EXCESS TO SURROUNDING

20,000 RESIDENTS

2. SITE CONDITION: CENTRAL CIVIC AMENITY PROGRAM: CITY LIGHTING / PUBLIC ART

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

WASTEWATER FROM:

ENERGY FOR LIGHTING

LAUNDRY ~15% TOILETS ~20%

BIOSWALES FOR STREETSCAPING

SHOWERS & SINKS ~65%

RESOURCE RECOVERY:

GREYWATER FOR IRRIGATION - EXCESS TO COMMUNITY BIOGAS & BIOFUEL THERMAL ENERGY FOR HEATING & COOLING

}

EXCESS TO SURROUNDING

20,000 RESIDENTS

3. SITE CONDITION: WATERFRONT RECREATIONAL AMENITY PROGRAM: AQUATIC CENTRE

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

WASTEWATER FROM:

THERMAL ENERGY TO SAUNA, STEAM & POOLS

LAUNDRY ~15% TOILETS ~20%

TREATED WATER FOR POOLS

SHOWERS & SINKS ~65%

RESOURCE RECOVERY:

GREYWATER FOR BUILDING AND COMMUNITY RE-USE BIOGAS & BIOFUEL THERMAL ENERGY FOR HEATING & COOLING

Fig. 6.6, 6.7, 6.8. - Expanded Typologies

}

EXCESS TO SURROUNDING

20,000 RESIDENTS

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SITE

The chosen site for the project is Mcloughlin Point, situated in the community of Esquimalt. This coastal site is highly visible to the cruise ships, ferry boats and float planes that pass though the harbor on a regular basis. The sites former use was a heavy-industrial oil storage facility, so it is a brownfield that exists currently as a concrete pad within the rocky shoreline. Views of Victoria are visible to the East, and the Olympic Mountains to the South.

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SEAWALL

ESQUIMALT

MCLOUGHLIN POINT

VICTORIA

MACAULAY POINT

Fig. 6.9 - Site Context

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N

22/06 22/06

22/09

ing evil Pr

W

s ind

22/09

22/12

22/12

S

Fig. 6.10 - Site Plan

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THE TECHNICAL & THE EXPERIENTIAL

This project aims to create immersive human experiences that begin from the technical processes. The technical being the machines, and the experiential as the series of thermal pools and infrastructural and scenic views, while the solar aquatic plant system mediates between the two. As you approach the building from the north, the seawall path transitions into the roof of the water treatment program. It becomes a public pavilion, with opportunities to take in the harbor and mountain views and interact with the infrastructure through skylights which reveal the machines below. The water treatment reactors are elevated and made visible and become an opportunity for a vertical canvas while emitting mist to add to the sensory experience.

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Fig. 6.11 - Looking down wastewater treatment corridor towards building.

69

Fig. 6.12 - View from corridor out to Victoria Harbor

70

Moving into the building, there is a more public realm which descends from the cafĂŠ that overlooks a cluster of natural swimming and hot pools. These are heated from the thermal extraction of the wastewater process. Both the water treatment process and the program have a sequential order that correlate to the flow of the water. (Fig. 6.14) The wastewater is treated and takes advantage of the sites natural slope to aid in its movement along with some pumps. The entry to the amenity program is above the machines, following the treatment path, and ends in the pools which are located above the resource recovery area.

This system serves a population of 20,000, and treats approximately 6500m3 wastewater per day, which is equivalent to about two and a half Olympic sized swimming pools. Typically, excess cleansed effluent is discharged into the ocean. In this program, there is a free water station that municipal services can fill up with and use for park and golf course irrigation, agricultural purposes, street cleaning and car washing.

The building’s program celebrates water not only with swimming and hot pools but also with other opportunities to experience water in the steam room, mist pavilion, outdoor showers and a harbor bath, and beyond the site in more pragmatic opportunities for re-using treated water in lieu of freshwater.

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Amenity Program COLD POOL 66° HOT POOL 98° HARBOUR BATH LAP POOL 80° OUTDOOR SHOWER HOT POOL 104° LEISURE POOL 85°

CAFE

Public Engagement

FREE WATER STATION PUBLIC & MUNICIPAL RE-FILL

HARBOUR BATH

CAFE PUBLIC ART VERTICAL CANVAS

UN MO

N TAI

W VIE

OU RB HA

IEW RV

SEAWALL

Water Treatment

TO LIVING SYSTEM

OCEAN DISCHARGE

FREE WATER STATION TIO BU

N

N TIO ERY FEC OV ISIN REC D E UV RC

D TER WA

LIVING SYSTEMS: SOLAR AQUATICS The consructed wetland is filled with crushed stone and vegetated with native marsh grasses and other wetland and tropical plants. Here, nitrates not used by plants are reduced microbially to nitrogen gas.

Pathogens are ingested by higher organisms.

PLANTS: Cattails, bulrushes, rushes, reeds, sedges, metha aquatica, duckweed, water lilies.

Fig. 6.13 - Three systems

RI IST

OU P RESEAT PUM H

SOIL AMENDMENT C LA

TOR EAC L R TION TOR ICGAE DIGES G EAC D LO SLU L R TMENT. BIAOEROBIC ICGIACAL TREA G LO IOLO BAIEOROBIC B ING

S IER RIF

EEN S CR

FROM MUNICIPALITY

72

Infrastructure is recognized as a powerful driver for fulfilling a utilitarian demand, it is less frequently recognized for its ability to act as a social and behavioral catalyst. This project seeks to establish a new relationship with public works and change the common perception of infrastructure, highlighting what opportunities exist by integrating locally scaled infrastructure into communities.

73

Fig. 6.14 - View of cold plunge pool and living systems

74

TECHNICAL SYSTEMS DIAGRAM

TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY: VERTICAL BIOLOGICAL REACTORS & SOLAR AQUATICS SYSTEM

INPUTS 325 liters/day/person, or, 0.325m3. x20,000 population district = 6500 m3 / day Equivalent to ~2.5 Olympic sized swimming pools.

WASTEWATER FROM: LAUNDRY ~15% TOILETS ~20%

FLOTATION CLARIFIER MUNICIPAL SEWER

INFLUENT SUMP

SCREENING & GRIT SEPARATION AIR COMPRESSOR

AIR COMPRESSOR

SLUDGE

SHOWERS & SINKS ~65% OXIDATION ZONE

OXIDATION ZONE

MIXING ZONE

MIXING ZONE

Bioreactor (~95m)

SATURATION ZONE

WASTE WATER TREATMENT

VERTREAT: high-rate activated sludge treatment process which provides aerobic biological treatment.

HYDRAULIC RETENTION TIME: 2 HOURS

Fig. 6.15 - Technical Diagram

75

FLOTATION THICKENER

WATER

PLUG FLOW ZONE

Bioreactor (~95m)

BIOSOLIDS PRODUCTION

VERTAD: auto-thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion which produces Class A biosolids.

HYDRAULIC RETENTION TIME: 4 DAYS

HYDRAULIC RETENTION TIME: 5 HOURS

OUTPUTS

TERTIARY TREATMENT SOLAR AQUATICS SYSTEM ‘CLASS A’ RECLAIMED WATER: ~/- 6500 m3 / DAY

UV DISINFECTION

WATER

TREATED WATER RE-USE

SOIL AMENDMENT BIOSOLIDS DISTRIBUTION HEAT

TO HEAT PUMP

TO POOLS

15% TO AQUATIC CENTRE TO MUNICIPAL WATER RE-FILL STATION: • BUILDING GREYWATER RE-USE • CITY STREET CLEANING • PARK & GOLF COURSE IRRIGATION REMAINDER TO OCEAN DISCHARGE ‘CLASS A’ BIOSOLIDS: ~30m3 / DAY

BIOREMEDIATION PONDS: CRUSHED STONE WITH NATIVE MARSH GRASSES AND TROPICAL PLANTS

NUTRIENT RECOVERY LAND APPLICATIONS: • AGRICULTURE FIELD • LANDFILL COVER • COMPOSTING FACILITIES

ENERGY RECOVERY -THERMAL EXTRACTION OF INFLUENT -BIOGAS UTILIZATION FOR FACILITY HEATING AND ELECTRICITY

RETENTION TIME: 1+ DAYS

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Fig. 6.16 - Site Section Perspective

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PLANS 01 SEAWALL 02 PUBLIC VIEWING CORRIDOR 03 FOG PAVILION 04 VIEW CAFE 05 FITNESS & MULTIPURPOSE 06 LIVING SYSTEMS STORAGE

UPPER LEVEL 01 LOBBY 02 MANAGER & OFFICE 03 CHANGE ROOMS: M, W, U 04 HOT ROCK 05 STEAM 06 LOADING, STORAGE 07 WET OFFICE 08 FIRST AID

09 LAP POOL 10 HOT POOL 11 COLD POOL 12 LEISURE POOL 13 WWT OFFICE & CONTROLS 14 CLARIFIER 15 SCREENING 16 MECHANICAL

MAIN LEVEL 02 POOLS & LIVING SYSTEMS ABOVE 02 RESOURCE RECOVERY: HEAT PUMP 03 UV DISINFECTION 04 BOILER & HOT WATER DISTRIBUTION 05 STORAGE 06 PUMP & CISTERN

LOWER LEVEL Fig. 6.17 - Plans

07 MECHANICAL 08 ELECTRICAL 09 BIOSOLIDS PROCESSING 10 VERTICAL BIOLOGICAL REACTORS 11 UNDERGROUND PARKING 12 STAFF 13 STORAGE

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Fig. 6.18 - Interior view looking East

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Fig. 6.19 - View through to living system from thermal hot rock room

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RETHINKING INFRASTRUCTURE

Modern day water infrastructure falls short to reflect the historic, symbolic connection to social and cultural values in its form.

As a result, human connection to the built form of infrastructure is at a divide. By re-thinking how infrastructure can be integrated into our built environment at a community scale, we begin to imagine more resilient, multi-functional civic facilities that strive for regenerative and ecologically sensitive principals, while establishing a connection to human experience. This would entail a shift from thinking about infrastructural functions from a hazard to an asset. Furthermore, this would enforce the interconnectivity between people and both their social and utilitarian functions, with the heightened awareness that comes with a strengthened sense of localism.

The mechanistic infrastructure of wastewater treatment is transformed into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. In this way, wastewater infrastructure becomes a community catalyst for social and environmental regeneration.

Experience

Experience

Water Water

Infrastructure

Infrastructure Contemporary systems of infrastructure ignore the human experience

Water infrastructure should be reimagined to be designed with human experience in mind

Fig. 6.20 - Concept Diagram

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PRESENTATION PANELS ORAL DEFENSE: APRIL 23, 2015

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MODEL IMAGES GREATER VICTORIA SITE MODEL 1:25,000

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MODEL IMAGES BUILDING MODEL 1:500

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NOTES CHAPTER ONE 1. World’s Population Increasingly Urban with More than Half Living in Urban Areas | UN DESA | United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Web. 2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Fischer-Kowalski, Marina, Fridolin Krausmann, and Irene Pallua. “A Sociometabolic Reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of Subsistence, Population Size and Human Impact on Earth.” The Anthropocene Review 1.1 (2014): 8–33.

Web. 5. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Web. 6. Safe Drinking Water Foundation 7. Granite Garden, part IV: Water, p. 127-168.

8. Environment Canada: Wise Water Use 9. Lorinc, John. The New City – Eco Cities, 251-268.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Coping with water scarcity. Challenge of the twenty-first century. UN-Water, FAO, 2007. (http://www.un.org/ waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml).

CHAPTER TWO 1. Landscape Infrastructure, intro by Ying-Yu Hung 2. Ibid.

3. Melosi. “The Sanitary City”. 2000.

4. Howard. “Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City proposal.” 1998.

5. Melosi. The Sanitary City. 2000.

6. Spirn, Anne Whiston. “Granite Garden”. 1985.

7. Ibid.

8. John Lorinc, Waterfront Cities 9. Lyster, “Landscape of Exchange: Re-Articulating Site”, Landscape Urbanism Reader.

10. Blenanger, Landscape as Infrastructure, 80.

11. William E. Wenk, “Toward an Inclusive Concept of Infrastructure,” in Ecology and Design Frameworks for Learning.

12. Aquino, 7. Preface to Landscape Infrastructure 13. Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus” in the Landscape Urbanism Reader, Charles Waldheim.

14. Ibid.

15. Saarinen, Eliel. “The City”. 146-147.

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CHAPTER THREE 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Moore, The Architecture of Water, 12-23 Ibid.

Ibid.

Erkin, Clean Water Space (http://www.cawater-info.net/all_about_water/en/?p=163) Ibid.

6. Ancient Roman Baths (http://www.crystalinks.com/romebaths.html) 7. Thermae, Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermae#Cultural_significance) 8. Livingston, Morna. 2002. Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India. New York: Princeton Architectural.

9. Shekhawat, Abhilash. “Stepwells of Gujarat”. India’s Invitation, Web. 10. Lautman, Victoria. India’s Forgotten Stepwells. (http://www.archdaily.com/395363/india-s-forgotten-stepwells/)

CHAPTER FOUR 1. Farr, Sustainable Urbanism, 183 2. Ibid.

3. Ernesto Pérez, P.E., Technology Transfer Chief, Water Management Division, USEPA Region IV, Atlanta, Georgia.

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Boddy, Trevor, and Hughes Condon Marler Architects. Pools: Aquatic Architecture : Hughes Condon Marler Architects. Novato, Calif.: ORO Editions, 2013.

Cuff, Dana, and Roger Sherman. Fast-Forward Urbanism: Rethinking Architecture’s Engagement with the City. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011 Farr, Douglas. Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Gandy, Matthew. Recycling and the Politics of Urban Waste. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Hung, Ying-Yu, Infrastructure Research Initiative at SWA, and Walker Associates Sasaki.

Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2011.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Modern Library, 1993.

Lorinc, John. The New City: How the Crisis in Canada’s Urban Centres is Reshaping the Nation. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006.

Melosi, Martin V. The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Moughtin, Cliff, Paola Signoretta, and Kate McMahon Moughtin. Urban Design: Health and the Therapeutic Environment. Boston; Amsterdam: Elsevier/Architectural Press, 2009.

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Polshek, James Stewart. Build, Memory. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2014.

Rao, D. G., and Ebooks Corporation. Wastewater Treatment: Advanced Processes and Technologies. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2012.

Shannon, Kelly, and Marcel Smets. The Landscape of Contemporary Infrastructure. Rotterdam; New York: NAi Publishers, 2010.

Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

Stoll, Katrina, and Scott Lloyd. Infrastructure as Architecture: Designing Composite Networks. Berlin: Jovis, 2010.

Todd, John. From Eco-cities to Living Machines: Principles of Ecological Design. North Atlantic Books, Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York, N.Y: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

White, Mason, Neeraj Bhatia, and Lola Sheppard. PA 30: Coupling : Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism. Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.

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