Bridging Waters
Exploring Madrid's Paradoxical Relationship with Water
S.A. Rovoli (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Roberto Cavallo – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
G. Karvelas – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
J.P.M. van Lierop – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
Birgit Hausleitner – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Urban Design)
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Abstract
The thesis proposes the transformation of two of Madrid's decorative fountains into functional public pools, addressing the city's residents’ needs for leisure through physical activity and cooling in a hot city like Madrid. Additionally, the project seeks to enable public access to the Manzanares River—an element currently missing within the city centre and the river’s urban planning. The intervention reclaims water as a shared urban resource for people to experience, while offering accessibility and public space next to the city’s forgotten river. Additionally, it programmatically and volumetrically enhances the surroundings of the Puente de Segovia site. This is done by adding a water management and sanitation research centre and a wastewater treatment plant next to the CEDEX (centre of hydraulic works of Spain). In this way, the water that is being treated and studied is later used for the public pools and the irrigation of the whole intervention. Hence,the hidden mechanisms of water regeneration, from hydraulic engineering to water regeneration are made visible to the public.