Architecture firm Jones Studio has designed an educational centre in Arizona with the aim of raising awareness about water resources and infrastructure in the region.
The Water Education Center will form part of a Central Arizona Project (CAP) facility north of Phoenix and highlight the "contested topic of water in the west", according to Jones Studio principal Brian Farling.
Prospective designs show a sloping weathering-steel canopy supported by stone-clad buildings on each side of the 336-mile-long (541 kilometers) canal that brings water from the Colorado River to central Arizona.
Jones Studio has designed The Water Education Center in Arizona
"A lot of architects are great at dealing with sun and capturing the qualities of light," Farling told Dezeen. "Less of them deal with engaging and celebrating this precious resource that falls from the sky very, very rarely. Architecture here has a responsibility to remind people of that preciousness."
Farling said that the centre, which includes educational materials and a direct view of the canal, will expose people to the whole water system in order to dispel the disconnectedness he sees in most people from where they get their water.
Rain and wastewater harvesting facilities feature in the design
This education is particularly important now, Farling said, because of the dwindling water supplies in the American Southwest and the political battles over it. He said these stem from water allotments to...