Mitigating Water Scarcity and Urban Heat
Integrating Circular Water Metabolisms and Thermodynamic Architecture in the Barcelona Eixample
B. Hoheiser (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S.H. Verkuijlen – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Our cities are getting hotter, drier, and more unlivable, yet we keep building the same static, heat-trapping architecture. I started the Lighthouse Block project because I wanted to prove that we don’t have to rely on brute-force mechanical systems or waste massive amounts of water to survive the climate crisis. Instead of hiding technical infrastructure in the basement, this thesis elevates it, transforming a standard Barcelona city block into a living, visible eco-machine.
The core idea is pragmatic: water and heat are not waste; they are raw materials. By decentralizing the urban water cycle, separating greywater streams, and implementing structural blue roofs, the block creates its own circular metabolism. This guarantees a continuous, drought-proof water supply to fuel the “Green Engine” – the vegetation that actively and bio- logically cools the microclimate precisely when it is needed most.
Beneath the surface, the block plugs directly into the local eology. By integrating Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) and Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES), it builds a massive seasonal thermal battery that stores winter cold for summer cooling, and vice versa. Ultimately, the Lighthouse Block is about shifting the urban paradigm. It proves that architecture can stop being a passive consumer of resources and instead become an active, thermodynamic system that regenerates its own environment.
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