New work advocates for water-centric approach to architecture, urban design

A new book by Brook Muller, dean of the College of Arts + Architecture, argues for the creative opportunities – and moral imperatives – of “embedding water-related concerns” into architectural design.

“Blue Architecture: Water, Design, and Environmental Futures, released on May 14 by University of Texas Press, suggests that good water quality and the systems that ensure it deserve consideration at the forefront of the building design process and can, in fact, “expand what is architecturally imaginable.”

At a moment when communities across the Western United States are facing water scarcity and residents in cities like Flint, Michigan, and Newburgh, New York, are suffering from water contamination, the book “endeavors to motivate a next generation of architects to embrace the complexities of water and water systems, excite the design and moral imaginary, and proactively contend with the many hydrological problems facing contemporary urban societies,” Muller writes in the Introduction.