This project concerns the many forms of water in Houston. Existing in dual states—referencing Ivan Illich’s H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness—water is both life-giving and treacherous. Houston’s water exists as a resource for living and playing, in its parks, bayous, and public pools. Alternately, water threatens life and property, as the city has been developed too close to its waterways.

This thesis reimagines Houston’s public relationship to water, considering the intersections of the cycles of water collection, purification, and use with infrastructures of recreation and water storage. Multiple kinds of water are dealt with across one site, offering an alternative to existing forms of retention and detention in Houston to create a new series of hydrosocial spaces that allow the public to enjoy water recreation and engage with many different points of the water cycle.