The building, elevated above the water on piles, shades water surfaces and acts as a distillation machine and aquifer replenisher. River water flows into the marsh via dry-stacked rock seeps and an elevated acequia. During flash floods, the banks overflow and the project acts as a large detention basin. Overflow crosses weirs in the concrete retaining wall and evaporates in the playa habitats. A sun protection layer harvests solar energy to run a passive solar still on the roof. Diffuse daylight enters the building from the water storage tube south wall and tubes under the skylight. A rebar grass stalk screen shades the building from low sun angle west and east light. Dead grass, replenished seasonally as an act of building maintenance, is woven across the rebar for additional shading and nest and cover material. A water protection layer is fully integrated with the water systems of the site. The upper surface of the solar still clear arched covers is sloped to drain rainwater north off the roof and into the poza. A structural set of lower arches are sloped to drain collected condensate the opposite direction into the south façade before feeding aquifer injection wells housed in the building’s structural piles. To feed the still, water from the poza is sucked up by steel tube straws powered by wind turbines. Water systems double as the thermal layer. South-facing thermal water storage tubes provide passive conditioning. On the east and west ends, walls of water treatment tanks act as a thermal buffer layer. Below the building, the water body buffers temperature change and provides evaporative cooling of air entering the building through floor vents.
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on site review 41 :: infrastructure
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