Flowing Through a Waterless World: Adaptive Settlement in Saharan Africa

Team

Name: Austin Tucker

Nationality: USA

Institution / Company: CRGA Design

 

Name: Jeremy Kargon

Nationality: USA

Institution / Company: CRGA Design

 

-FINALIST of Waterless World Competition

 

Water flows – when it is present. The lack of water “flows,” too. 

Aridity reaches across established political boundaries due to climate change, topographic shift, and the inconsistent stewardship of the land’s resources. And with aridity’s surge comes the flow of other things, tangible and intangible: people, their cultures, and their manufactured detritus. Where water once flowed, we may find in its place traces of past resources, shaped (then) into things and (now) waiting reuse.

Saharan Africa bears those traces, spanning millennia. Berber, Punic, Roman, Arab, Turkish, and French rulers have all left their physical imprint. Post-colonial governments did likewise, investing in extractive industries that have already become obsolescent.

This project illustrates a community of migrants, attracted not by the promise of wealth but by the feasibility of mere subsistence. They arrive from places of worse distress, with or without water. But arrive they do, only to here and no further. Within the ruins of an abandoned ore processing facility, these migrants mine air for water, wind for power, and sun for light. In old architecture, they’ve made new architecture. In this waterless world, even a contingent community deploys design to serve its survival – and its future.

 

#Drylands #Adaptive_Settlement #Dew_Harvesting #Wastewater_Treatment #Groundwater_Stewardship

You may also like

We use cookies to give you the best online experience. By agreeing you accept the use of cookies in accordance with our cookie policy.

Privacy Settings saved!
Privacy Settings

When you visit any web site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Control your personal Cookie Services here.

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

Cookie Name Duration Purpose
woocommerce_cart_hash session Helps WooCommerce determine when cart contents/data changes.
woocommerce_items_in_cart session Helps WooCommerce determine when cart contents/data changes.
wp_woocommerce_session_ 2 days Contains a unique code for each customer so that it knows where to find the cart data in the database for each customer.
  • woocommerce_cart_hash
  • woocommerce_items_in_cart
  • wp_woocommerce_session_

Decline all Services
Accept all Services