This studio focused on the mutability of water and the role of architecture in defining its form. Throughout the semester, we researched the material, sensorial, and symbolic aspects of water from different geographical and cultural contexts. Beginning with a series of exercises, students produced photographic narratives of waters’ shifting states, and developed a seven-step short story treatment, (including a story set-up, dilemma, and plot twist) that considered the impact of water upon the lives of its characters and served as the basis for an architectural design.

Similar to the way one engages a book by turning the pages, we experience buildings through a sequence of passages and progressions. Using the story treatments as a point of departure, students defined spatial narratives for their buildings around the combined program elements of an aquatic center, a museum, and a contemplative garden.