Water design is of major importance today. The risks associated with water and climate change are a cause of global concern. The number of projects dealing with water-related issues is virtually endless, so pervasive that they play the role of connectors among coalitions of different players, disciplines, performances and ways of thinking.
Water Designs, the title of the exhibition, considers not only water as a topic, but the project that water itself designs, according to its rationalities, logics and behaviours. The water project is the one that shapes our territories and our living space over the longue durée. Water is the subject and the agent that we simply reveal, rediscover, accompany and follow, with projects that listen to its voice and its intentions. Water has been one of the many weak subjects of modernity, one that has been violated, attacked, modified, hidden. Water is nonetheless a ‘weak structure’, capable of structuring the contemporary city territory beyond its heterogeneity, fragmentation and the separation of spaces and functions. Cities and territories are the ‘water laboratory’ in which to shape the socio-ecological transition. Water is about life, space and power relations.
The project of water is biopolitical.
The exhibition focuses on several fundamental paradigm shifts around Water Designs that characterize our times and a plurality of geographical, disciplinary and cultural contexts. To this end, the exhibition is organized around two main conceptual and spatial devices.
The exhibition is an initiative of Archizoom in collaboration with the interdisciplinary research platform Habitat Research Center (HRC) and Lausanne Jardins 2024.
Curatorial team
Habitat Research Center :
Prof. Paola Viganò, Tommaso Pietropolli, Loan Laurent, Hugo Silva Costa avec Matthew Skjonsberg
Archizoom :
Roxane Le Grelle, Cyril Veillon