Thilakam Rachuri

HYDRO COMMUNITY : LIVING WITH WATER
A space equally becoming for everyday life and times of crisis
 

“Architecture negotiates space, it designs space. When it engages with water, it designs water.” – Jutta Jain-Neubauer

Increasing concentration of people, economic activities, industry, transportation, agriculture practices in the world has led to climate change. In the context of global warming, water is a huge crisis in India at present. Climate change and political actions have caused significant depletion in the regional water resources. Water scarcity impacts political, environmental and socio-cultural systems at various levels. 

In many communities around the world, with the reallocation of the hydrological sphere from open-source contact to piped infrastructure. Which led to the systematic treatment of water as a pure utilitarian need from a resource rooted in celebration and gratitude and a vital element of social space. 

To understand how future water systems can be imagined to serve people, justice, ecosystems in the face of climate change stress. As an observation this project examines the unique and diverse structures of water storage systems which articulate relationship to water resources available and a way of life that was deeply rooted in local and cultural conditions in India. The project also critiques the centralised management of large-scale infrastructure projects and advocating water independence as a common domain for the local people. 

This research intends to ask how does architecture can allow a shift of the water resources back to the communities of people, who rely on the resources most? This thesis will examine how can water and design of a community be considered together as a productive frame for communities’ social life and ecological regeneration? The project embodies a shift in the imagination of water infrastructure and strives to alter in terms of socio-political, economic and technological aspects in India to promote a cultural shift and gender equity in communities.