Water has been an important topic in architecture and urban planning for years. The revitalization of the waterfront has been a prevalent trend in cities around the world. On the other hand, architecture also had to respond to the threat of floods.
The theme of Building with Water is the use of water in architecture. It presents buildings that explicitly refer to water in their design and form. It establishes a typology of building by the water: residential structures, recreation facilities, industry and infrastructure, buildings for culture and art.
The various design parameters are explored in four essays. Subsequently, twenty-two international projects are presented, organized according to their locations by a river, a lake or the sea.
The authors concern is not to show luxurious buildings in privileged locations but rather presenting projects that seriously grapple with the main criterion of the location namely, water in an ecologically sustainable way and respond to it with their design.
Zoë Ryan studied art history at the University of Sussex, the University of Amsterdam and Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the Neville Bryan Curator of Design at The Art Institute of Chicago where she is responsible for organizing exhibitions and building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design.
Ryan was a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and subsequently became Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute (VAI) in New York, a non-profit public art and architecture organization where she organized the exhibition "The Good Life: New Public Spaces of Recreation," installed on Pier 40 in New York City. Her writing on art and design has been published in The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, Contemporary, Monument, and Log.