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WATER CHURCH IS A REPLICABLE COMMUNITY SCULPTURE

IT IS A INTERSPECIES PUBLIC BATHING FACILITY 

WHERE WATER IS CLEANED AND RESTORED THROUGH ENGAGEMENT

SUPPORT THE RESEARCH

SUPPORT A BUILD

water church DALL·E 2023-03-10 20.07.39 - photo of morrocan humble beehive adobe brick anc

FOR

NOTIONS

  FORM STUDY

  SOIL STUDY

  TEK

PHASED ACTIVATIONS

SUPPORT THE WORK

water church DALL·E 2023-03-10 19.41_edited.jpg

WATER CHURCH IS FOR

WORSHIP

PLEASURE

ENGAGEMENT

RECIPROCITY

CARE

REFUGE

SANCTUARY

COMMUNITY

KINSHIP

As we move in and use explores complex intersectional challenges we face in climate crisis, water health, toxicity transformation and environmental justice. It embarks on culture change in the strategy tradition of pleasure activism, inviting us into cultures of care, stewardship, body normativity, reciprocal health, common space and resource sharing. It expands our notion of interdependence and kinship by exploring microbiological politics, ethnobotanical relationships, and interspecies spaces. It transforms our expectations of our architecture to challenge monoculturalism, extractivism, and colonized relationships with resources, towards notions of regenerative construction, biomimicry, and indigenous technology.

NOTIONS

INTERSPECIES KINSHIP

MICROBIAL PROLIFERATION

REGENERATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

As we move in and use explores complex intersectional challenges we face in climate crisis, water health, toxicity transformation and environmental justice. It embarks on culture change in the strategy tradition of pleasure activism, inviting us into cultures of care, stewardship, body normativity, reciprocal health, common space and resource sharing. It expands our notion of interdependence and kinship by exploring microbiological politics, ethnobotanical relationships, and interspecies spaces. It transforms our expectations of our architecture to challenge monoculturalism, extractivism, and colonized relationships with resources, towards notions of regenerative construction, biomimicry, and indigenous technology.

Natural building is our oldest and longest running modality of articulating space, but it’s typically absent from local building codes or regulated out of accessibility.  Ancestral trades and traditions in adobe and masonry have fewer practicers year after year. Ancient systems of irrigation and power are forgotten as even remote parcels are assimilated into state run grids and privatized parceling. Community practices of group bathing dwindle, gardens are fences, houses become hermetic, and we grow complacent in the single species monoculture of the urban environment. Locked away in lonely boxes, individualizing our lives and creating resource redundancies for services and spaces that could be shared. In the name of germs, safety, liability, earthquake proofing and efficiency, colonizer cosmologies have shaped and stifled our architectonics, asserting that single species environments are acceptable, even preferential and that water is simply a vehicle for waste, not a sacred sibling we need steward if we plan to survive the century. We turn it on and off, disconnected from its source or destination, we wash our hands  and our clothes and paintbrushes and our floors with it, we defecate into it, let it roll through oiled streets and force it through aging metallic pipes, so it can exist in convenient interior spaces where it molds and toxifies, where we chase it with Draino and chlorine to scour it’s protests and blockages and toxifications. we have water networks that are harmful to water. And as humans interact with it, we make our water quality worse. We have reached a critical point in which even our rainwater has become toxic. 

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REGENERATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

REGENERATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

REGENERATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

TYPE

Title

MATERIAL

Title

Title

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

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Research

support ten research, fieldwork expenses and soil studio experimentation  and publication production costs

The project commences through generation of research document and technical guide to understanding and implementing these sustainable technologies into a final architecture, empowering its reader to design and create a water sanctuary in their own community. This ephemeral and digitized publication, replete with fieldwork documentation test results, inspirations, conversation, contributions, is not simply a collection of architectural drawings, but rather a speculative deep dive into observations and imaginings of what interspecies water holes could dream themselves to be. The premise can be duplicated, iterated, elaborated, expanded, simplified, customized, translated and localized. Water Sanctuaries can exist for anyone, for everyone, regenerating our world as they are enjoyed and cared for. Water Sanctuary represents the culmination of years seeking ancestral sustainable technologies in my practice, finally gathering them into a single sculptural experiment, layered and aligned to filter, host, clean, heal, feed and grow. Ecosystems require balance, and mimicking natural environments requires a durable understanding of that balance, and how it fluctuates under different conditions of size, species, engagement, growth and climate. For a body to exist without pumps or plastic, electricity or metals, it relies on an intimate exploration of the non-human communities that feed on, live in, benefit from, and rely on the water. By approaching community space first from a habitat design perspective, endeavoring to create dream houses for aquatic botanicals, pollinators, fish and bacteria, you learn how to create a biodiverse ecosystem, which in turn, honors its elemental container. Like a healthy forest gives us clean air, a balanced body gives us clean water.

ABOBE BRICK + COMPRESSED EARTH

TYPE

BUILDING MATERIAL 

MATERIAL

CLAY, STONE

MEXICO

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

The structure is composed of adobe brick and compressed earth,
variably utilized dependent on structural need. Walls are finished in
burnished mud, and waterproof versions of all are achieved through the
addition of wood ash during the mixing process.

ONDOL FLOORS WITH HOT BATH

TYPE

ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENT

MATERIAL

CLAY, STONE, FIRE

KOREA ONDOL, ROMAN HYPOCAUST

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Fire setting and smoke chamber to channel heat inside of
interior architecture and seating to create warm adobe surfaces to support
muscular release and cellular healing

Water pumped and boiled may be routed to small individual
sitting baths. This water is only released into the larger system when it has
cooled to it’s natural temperature. If herbs or soap nuts are utilized in the
bathing system, this water is routed into greywater for trees, rather than
integrated back into the larger pools.  These small side pools are kept
warm from below, through the ondol heating system.

WOOD STOVE + TEA STATION

TYPE

ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENT

MATERIAL

CLAY, FLORA

MEXICAN ESTUFA, RUSSIAN РУССКАЯ ПЕЧЬ

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

This wood stove draws style and technology from indigenous
Mexican in-home wood fires and russian stove heat distribution, tying in with
the ondol/hypocaust heating system. This stove supports a clay Olla situated
in the circular opening on the active surface. Fire here is connected to
architecture, heats relevant surfaces as well as the vessel situated on top.
This stove technology generates warm, heats water, and makes charcoal for the
filtration system.
Here, rainwater that has passed through the filtration stairs, and is diverted into an olla that can be placed on top of the stove fire to boil, killing bacterial pathogens and rendering the water potable. Medicinal plants from the edible forest can be added to produce a tea for drinking or a medicinal mixture to add to the hot bath. 

IMPLUVIUM ROOF + CISTERN

TYPE

WATER HARVEST TECHNIQUE

MATERIAL

CLAY, STONE, WATER

AFRICA, ROMAN

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

The impluvium roof collects
rainwater into a central pool or catchment chamber, with an overflow
mechanism connected to an underground cistern. The central pools of the
temple are fed directly by this rain collected via roof, among other sources.

RILL SYSTEM

TYPE

IRRIGATION SYSTEM

MATERIAL

CLAY

INSPIRED BY THE RILL WORK OF ITALIAN ARCHITECT CARLO SCARPA
AND IN THE ETHNOBOTANICAL GARDENS OF OAXACA

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

A combination of open faced rills and piping, comprised of
bamboo pipes, rock ways and ceramic channels - allowing for targeted water
movement to specific pools, process and overflow into planted areas and
storage wells.
Targeted to trees in garden Water exposed to soap nuts or routed from the scrub area, or water overflow from the nutrient process in times of heavy rainfall are routed to trees that require more water and whose roots process greater toxicity that edible annuals 

FOG HARVESTING NET? RIVER
CONNECTION?

TYPE

WATER HARVEST TECHNIQUE

MATERIAL

FLORA

SOUTH AMERICA, EUROPE

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Depending on the temple’s geographical situation and the
behaviors of it’s microclimate and watershed, various catchment systems may
be employed. Close access to a river could include a diversion system that
also generates power through kinetic energy. Catchment in a high elevation
forests might use fog nets, and   coast adjacent sites would focus on
desalination

STEPWELL CATCHMENT

TYPE

WATER HARVEST TECHNIQUE

MATERIAL

CLAY, WATER

INDIA

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

A brick based burnished step-well area culminating in drainage
to a protected underground cistern.

OLLA IRRIGATION

TYPE

IRRIGATION SYSTEM

MATERIAL

CLAY

CHINA, NORTH AFRICA, MEXICO

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Burying permeable clay pots in the center of plants that
require regular watering. Once filled with water, the pot slowly leeches
water into the surrounding soil as needed, with moisture tension allowing the
dirt to drawing from the walls of the vessel as needed. Lessens frequency of
watering and lowers water loss from surface evaporation and runoff, while
promoting deep watering and dense root growth.

HAND PUMP

TYPE

FIXTURE

MATERIAL

CLAY

WORLDWIDE

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

When activated by human labor, this manual pump draws water
from the cisterna up into the  shower/scrub system, so that use of water
outside the pooled system is measured and felt, never used without
understanding of quantity.

NATURAL POOL

TYPE

WATER FILTRATION SYSTEM

MATERIAL

CLAY, FAUNA, FLORA, STONE, WATER

BIOMIMICRY

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

The natural pool mimics the interspecies nutrient exchange and microbial environment of a naturally occurring body of water. The central pools of the temple complex transverse the interior space of the building and the exterior outdoor realm, inviting interspecies kin to drink and swim, in the interspecies peace tradition of the waterhole and the community tradition of group bathing. Skin from humans and animals insects and larvae are consumed by fish species, movement and gravity systems aerate the water, and aquatic plant species in layered edge lands of sand stone and soil absorb decomposing organic material and fish waste, cleaning the water and protecting a standing body from toxic monocultures and bacterial overgrowth This dynamic natural system has been mimicked in natural pools, bog gardens, aquaponics, Aztec Chinampas, South Asian water gardens, Chinese paddy fields, and the Fukuoka Method

HERON FOUNTAIN

TYPE

FIXTURE

MATERIAL

GLASS

EGYPT

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

This fountain uses only gravity to motivate its movement of
water. Fountain employed to increase oxygenation of water through cascade,
and provide interactive feature within pool.

BAMBOO FIXTURES

TYPE

FIXTURE

MATERIAL

FLORA

CAMBODIA 

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Water release fixtures are achieved through natural renewable materials. A rain shower to slow the fall of pumped water in the rinse area is created by nesting pieces, cutting holes, and fashioning gate valves, from the bamboo itself, into a section of bamboo tube. 

VERMICOMPOST TRASH CAN

TYPE

HABITAT

MATERIAL

FLORA

BIOMIMICRY

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

The vermicompost trash can system supports worm abundance and
creates nutrient rich compost to support plantings in the edible food forest.
Non-meat edibles can be disposed of at the trash’s top, sifting downward as
they decompose, while the worms contained within eat upwards towards newer
material. The trash’s bottom can be removed, now replete with rich nutrient
dense soil that can be applied at the base of plants and trees that require
support.

BIRD SHELF

TYPE

HABITAT

MATERIAL

CLAY, FLORA

JAPAN

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

This interior roof detail creates eaves and compartments, to
invite and encourage birds to build their nests within the safety of the
temple complex. Located over open soil strips, to utilize the nutrient rich
and seed filled bird droppings that fall from above.

INSECT HOTEL

TYPE

HABITAT

MATERIAL

CLAY, FLORA

GERMANY

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Local wall materials that form ideal homes and nest shapes for a variety of pollinator species to colonize. (carizo, bricks, trunk slices, stick slices, cantera)

POLLINATOR GARDEN

TYPE

HABITAT

MATERIAL

FLORA

WORLDWIDE

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Locally relevant pollinator plantings, species that support
food, nest and birth cycles for insect and bird varieties that support plant
pollination

BAMBOO + CARIZO

TYPE

ETHNOBOTANICAL ELEMENT

MATERIAL

FLORA

ASIA, MEXICO

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Woven into the surrounding plantings are healthy stands of
Carizo and bamboo. These quick growing highly renewable forms of wood
material are readily available for fire fuel, construction material,
irrigation pipes, and repairs on the existing system. 

SOAP NUT TREES

TYPE

ETHNOBOTANICAL ELEMENT

MATERIAL

FLORA

INDIA AND NEPAL

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Cultivation of the Soapberry (Sapindus Mukorossi) throughout
the surrounding gardens provides a nontoxic clarifying soap that can be used in the rinse area of the temple. The trees roots prevent soil erosion, it is
resilient to disease and requires very few nutrients and little water to
thrive. The fruit, once dried can be boiled into a liquid soap or be used
loose in a bag, submerged and massaged to lather.

LOOFAH SHADE CEILING

TYPE

ETHNOBOTANICAL ARCHITECTURE

MATERIAL

FLORA

NATIVE: SE ASIA AND AUSTRALIA

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

A open ceiling grid made from Carizo, underplanted with snack
gourds (Luffa aegyptiaca),
a vining gourd whose fruit can be dried as used as a skin exfoliant for human
skin. The vines and leaves create shaded space underneath.

MULLEIN TOILET PAPER

TYPE

ETHNOBOTANICAL

MATERIAL

FLORA

EUROPE, NORTHERN AFRICA AND ASIA

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

To avoid build up of human waste in any single location which
can create toxicity and anaerobic soil conditions, Mullein, a fast growing
tall leafy medicinal plant will be planted in a dense ring around the temple
complex. Their giant, abundant soft leaves make the ideal renewable toilet
paper. Visual absence of leaves is a visual indicator for users of where
other defectors have recently been, so they can choose lesser used areas thus
spreading out the impact of human fecal waste. Plant reseeds itself.

FILTRATION STEPS

TYPE

WATER FILTRATION SYSTEM

MATERIAL

CLAY, FLORA, STONE, WATER

MEXICO, SOUTH AMERICA, AFRICA

TRADITION

ACTIVATION

Using gravity to push water from stage to stage, these filtration steps are troughs filled with a variety of easily accessible and
renewable natural filtration materials, removing harmful solids and chemicals from the water as it enters the temple complex. Crushed Corn cob, Moringa seeds, and coconut husks, grown In the edible forest, are complimented by steps of local sand, rock, and widely available Zeolite, a filtration favorite of the Maya. Bamboo charcoal, grown in the edible forest, is a byproduct created in the interior stove, used as another step of filtration. Local sand, stones and soil compromise additional steps. All materials can be locally generated and easily freshened.

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