Archinect - News

Arizona's state water supply loophole is causing a gold rush for multifamily construction

2023-11-14T12:31:00-05:00

Local leaders near Phoenix are placing limits on where new homes can be built, with the goal of protecting long-term access to water. But there's a significant loophole. [...] Policymakers may try again, and the governor has set up a task force on the issue. Ferris says the strength of Arizona's water law is that it links building decisions with water decisions. No other Western state requires cities to look a hundred years into the future.

Permitting of new subdivision construction has been curtailed in the Phoenix area over water scarcity, though a loophole over multifamily construction has led to a recent boom there as developers are still free to open state taps when needed in search of a requisite 100-year groundwater supply.

Small cities like Casa Grande and Buckeye are making the news as prolific cases, with around 3,000 and 6,500 new units permitted in each in the last two years alone. The official statewide need stands at 200,000 overall. Lawmakers are now trying to put a halt to the build-to-rent exemption in the face of a population influx and despite developer’s lobbying.

California unveils water security strategy to prevent 10% loss in supply by 2040

2022-08-16T11:20:00-04:00

California Governor Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new plan to enable the state to secure its water supply in the face of a hotter, drier climate. The strategy is in response to a prediction that California’s existing water supply could diminish by up to 10% by 2040, the equivalent of losing more than the full volume of the state’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake.

The strategy, contained in a 16-page document, includes four pillars. New storage space for up to 4 million acre-feet of water will be created, allowing the state to collect water during storms to store and use during drier periods. The state will also aim to recycle and reuse at least 800,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2030, water that is currently discharged to the ocean.

Meanwhile, 500,000 acre-feet of water will be unlocked by permanently eliminating water waste and using water more efficiently, while new water will also be made available by capturing stormwater, as well as desalinating ocean water and salty water in ...

Could reusing the condensate from air conditioners be a feasible solution to mitigating water scarcity?

2021-05-21T15:41:00-04:00

What do a handful of Microsoft Corporate offices, the Austonian in Austin, the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture building, and San Diego International Airport (SAN) have in common? Each building practices air conditioner condensate reuse for alternative irrigation methods, cooling, and water conservation efforts.

While these are a few examples of buildings around the globe adopting this practice of water reuse, professor Jonathan Bean from the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture explains the realistic outlook on condensate reuse. "Reusing condensate is important but not a critical piece in counteracting climate change," he shared with Chris Malloy of Bloomberg CityLab. Instead, Bean believes there are more effective strategies out there like "making buildings smaller and reconsidering refrigerants."

Image © har__q via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

"While the water volume from air conditioners h...

New Google Arts & Culture initiative documents the threat of climate change to Unesco World Heritage sites

2020-02-06T16:14:00-05:00

Google Arts & Culture has launched a new online initiative calling attention to five Unesco World Heritage sites under threat from climate change. The Heritage on the Edge series reveals how rising sea levels, coastal erosion and extreme weather patterns are endangering landmarks across the world [...].

The five threatened Unesco World Heritage sites featured in the online Heritage on the Edge exhibit are Easter Island's iconic moai statues of Rapa Nui; the Old and New Towns of Scotland's capital Edinburgh; the flood-prone mosque city of Bagerhat in Bangladesh; Tanzania's port city of Kilwa Kisiwani endangered by coastal erosion; and the pre-Columbian adobe metropolis of Chan Chan, Peruvian at risk of drought and storms.

Image via Heritage on the Edge

"Above all, the project is a call to action," writes Professor Dr. Toshiyuki Kono, President of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, in a recent Google blog post. "Heritage on the Edge collects stories of loss, but also of hope and resilience. They remind us that all our cultural heritage, including these iconic World Heritage Sites, are more than just tourist destinations. They are places of great national, spiritual and cultural significance."

Heritage on the Edge. Video via Google Arts & Culture on YouTube.

"The realit...

Chennai, India's sixth-largest city, is nearly out of water

2019-06-27T15:54:00-04:00

In India's sixth-largest city, lines for water snake around city blocks, restaurants are turning away customers and a man was killed in a brawl over water. Chennai, with a population of almost 10 million, is nearly out of water. In much of India, municipal water, drawn from reservoirs or groundwater, typically runs for only a couple of hours each day. That's the norm year-round. The affluent fill tanks on their roofs; the poor fill jerrycans and buckets.

Chennai, the Indian metropolis with a population estimated to be larger than New York City, is facing a grim water shortage, and residents hope that officials can come up with short- and long-term measures to prevent "Day Zero" — just like Cape Town famously did during its severe water crisis two years ago.

Tarun Gopalakrishnan, a climate change expert at the Indian Centre for Science and Environment told NPR that the situation was shocking but not surprising; a crisis as the result of "a toxic mix of bad governance and climate change."

Water woes are creeping up on Phoenix, America's fifth-largest city

2018-03-22T16:01:00-04:00

Phoenix and its surrounding area is known as the Valley of the Sun, and downtown Phoenix – which in 2017 overtook Philadelphia as America’s fifth-largest city – is easily walkable, with restaurants, bars and an evening buzz. But it is a modern shrine to towering concrete, and gives way to endless sprawl that stretches up to 35 miles away to places like Anthem. The area is still growing – and is dangerously overstretched, experts warn.

With cities in the Desert West, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, rapidly growing in size and population, water is becoming an evermore hot commodity; all while the source of that water, primarily the Colorado River, is becoming increasingly unreliable due to climate change.

"And yet despite the federal Bureau of Reclamation reporting in 2012 that droughts of five or more years would happen every decade over the next 50 years," writes Joanna Walters for The Guardian's Overstretched Cities series, "greater Phoenix has not declared any water restrictions. Nor has the state government decided its official drought contingency proposal."

Despite recent heavy rains, California's water woes persist (as do the world's)

2017-02-10T12:30:00-05:00

For the last few weeks, California has been pummeled with heavy rainstorms — a rare, and (for some) appreciated relief from the dry conditions that have plagued the state for the past few years. But those of us who were hoping the storms might have signified an end to the state’s serious drought will be disappointed. According to hydrologists, there’s probably no storm capable of ending the state’s water shortage. We’re just consuming way too much for the clouds to keep up. California is the country’s largest agricultural producer. But that requires massive amounts of water, particularly for crops like almonds and walnuts.

And as if that isn’t depressing enough, apparently one-third of the planet’s major aquifers are being drained. Scientists believe that in the next few decades, global food production will be reduced by around 350 million tons due to water shortages. That’s about the same as the entire U.S. grain harvest. In California, up to 22% of irrigated farmland may have to be...

Santa Monica's 'impossibly green' building dreams: the challenging path to Living Building certification

2016-11-30T14:57:00-05:00

On a small and skinny lot wedged behind its historic city hall, Santa Monica is trying to accomplish something that has never been done before in California. By 2020, the city hopes to construct a 50,000-square-foot city services building that will meet the requirements of the International Living Future Institute’s “Living Building Challenge” — the most stringent environmental building standard in the world.

"Should the city succeed it will prove that net-zero water is possible in our arid climate, even in a drought — and that if we’re serious about staving off the effects of drought and climate change, we should settle for no less. It will also familiarize code officials with new innovations, making it easier for developers to build sustainably."

What would happen if LA replaced all its lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping?

2016-09-06T13:13:00-04:00

A new study by researchers at the University of Southern California found that replacing all lawns with drought-tolerant vegetation would have a net cooling effect of 0.2°C — but the science is less obvious than you might think. In fact, converting lawns has resulted in daytime warming of up to 1.9°C, mostly because of decreases in irrigation. But at nighttime, changes in soil thermodynamic properties, which strengthen sea breeze patterns, cool the city by 3.2°C.

In short, replacing all lawns would have significant, and beneficial, effects for public health. And, of course, it helps preserve already-scarce water supplies.

The study also seems to prove incorrect articles that suggested replacing lawns would make LA hotter.

For more on the on-going drought afflicting California, check out these links:

Huge groundwater reserves discovered deep below California's Central Valley

2016-06-28T13:49:00-04:00

In a surprising new study, Stanford researchers have found that drought-ravaged California is sitting on top of a vast and previously unrecognized water resource, in the form of deep groundwater, residing at depths between 1,000 and nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the state’s always thirsty Central Valley. [...] new research could prove controversial among scientists trying to interpret what it means for a state that has battled over water, and its distribution, going back many decades.

Other drought-related stories in the Archinect news:

What California's 30 million dead trees mean for its future landscape

2016-06-15T15:23:00-04:00

CALIFORNIA WON’T BE throwing much shade this summer. It would need trees to do that. Last year almost 30 million trees died in the Golden State—and that number is expected to double or triple by the end of 2016. The high mortality rates come at a time when the state needs healthy forests most, with climate change looming always and a La Niña—El Niño’s dry hermana—on the way.

"The likely outcome? California’s landscape will radically transform, starting with a surge of wildfires that will trigger mudslides, diminished water quality, and the rise of new vegetation."

For more news from the dried out Golden State, check out these links:

California eases some drought restrictions but makes others permanent

2016-05-10T15:42:00-04:00

Gov. Jerry Brown [...] laid out a revised game plan for dealing with California’s persistent drought, making some conservation rules permanent while also moving to give communities more of a say in deciding how much water they must save. Brown issued an executive order enshrining a conservation ethic in state regulations — banning permanently some wasteful water practices and ordering regulators to develop new water-efficiency standards designed to drive down long-term urban use.

Previous Archinect stories covering the drought crisis in California and the Southwest U.S.:

One CEO's plan to supply water to drought-stricken CA cities, and obviously profit from it

2016-01-20T15:14:00-05:00

Scott Slater has a plan. It is not a popular plan, but he wants to pump 814bn gallons of water from under the Mojave desert to Los Angeles and other drought-stricken communities in southern California, and make more than $2bn doing so...In addition to environmental concerns, others object to a private company being able to make billions from water. Slater says they do not understand the law, which in California states no entity can own water but they can buy, sell and trade the right to use it.

America: The land where nothing is free, indeed.

h/t New Republic

Have these heavy rains alleviated the California drought?

2016-01-19T20:45:00-05:00

...this week's higher temperatures and sunny skies serve as a reminder that one watery week doesn't erase the years of hardcore drought that have dragged on in SoCal and all of California. The record-breaking rains are a reason to be excited, certainly, but "Although this is a favorable start to the year, there are still 3-4 more critical months that will determine how much rain/snow will fall and accumulate during the wet season," [says] David Miskus, a meteorologist ...

Relevant:

Thirst-quenching as Los Angeles heats up: Next Wave @ UCLA

2015-12-08T19:18:00-05:00

Last week, UCLA’s Hammer Museum hosted the final iteration of its 2015 program "Next Wave: Quality, Quantity, and Accessibility of Water in the 21st Century," a robust discussion series that has gathered experts in various fields to explicate and consider the most pressing issues surrounding water in the 21st century. This final event, subtitled "Thriving in a Hotter Los Angeles," grappled with issues closest to home, largely under the purview of the goals articulated by the ambitious "Sustainable LA Grand Challenge," a UCLA initiative dedicated to achieving water and energy sustainability in the county by 2020.

Claudia Bestor, the director of public programs at the Hammer, began the evening by introducing the speakers: Mark Gold, Associate Vice Chancellor for Environment and Sustainability (among other titles) at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA; Alex Hall, the faculty director at the UCLA Center for Climate Change Solutions; Eric Hoek, the founder and CEO o...

Scientists create first detailed map of Earth's hidden groundwater

2015-11-24T12:07:00-05:00

A new study has, for the first time, estimated the total volume of groundwater present on the Earth. The results show that we're using up the water supply quicker than it can be naturally replaced, while future research will seek to determine exactly how long it will be until modern groundwater runs dry. Groundwater is an extremely precious resource, being a key source of sustenance for humanity and the ecosystems we inhabit.

(Ground)water-related articles on Archinect:

Drought reveals 16th century church beneath Mexican reservoir

2015-10-19T13:59:00-04:00

The ruins of a 16th century church have emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico. The water level in the Nezahualcóyotl reservoir in Chiapas state has dropped by 25m (82ft) because of a drought in the area. The church, known as the Temple of Santiago or the Temple of Quechula, has been under nearly 100ft of water since 1966. The church, which is believed to have been built by Spanish colonists, is 183ft long and 42ft wide, with a bell tower that rises 48ft above the ground.

"Lagoonous Assemblage : Antifragile Urbanism for a dry Los Angeles," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-10-02T11:30:00-04:00

Among the many writers of disasters and crisis – from Barthes to Blanchot to Ballard – there is a strain of thinking that rejects the normative and reductive assumption that a disaster must be met with an austere temper or melancholic pragmatism. Rather, disasters can breed their own wild creativity. The Lagoonous Assemblage: Antifragile Urbanism for a dry Los Angeles Honorable Mention proposal seems to take this direction, asking how the drought can be conceived of as an opportunity.

Lagoonous Assemblage : Antifragile Urbanism for a dry Los Angeles by Tanzil Shafique

The central question this project explores is how to turn crisis into an opportunity and the notion of antifragility gives a philsophical background to such design exploration agenda. It is defined as a quality of a system to benefit from exposure to disorder/stress/disaster, as opposed to resiliency which merely adapts to the stress. Can a re-invented urbanism be envisoned for Los Angeles that uses the drought as a pre...

"SEEDING MICRO-CLOUDS. Power Transmission Lines & WaterTransmission Surfaces," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-10-02T09:00:00-04:00

In the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics, there was a flurry of news about the Chinese government's attempt to seed clouds in order to engineer the weather. In fact, the technology – while largely considered imperfect – both exists and has been implemented. The SEEDING MICRO-CLOUDS. Power Transmission Lines & WaterTransmission Surfaces Honorable Mention proposal imagines a future in which existing infrastructure could be employed to serve as the base for a micro-cloud seeding operation to provide water to a thirsty California.

"SEEDING MICRO-CLOUDS. Power Transmission Lines & WaterTransmission Surfaces," by Cristina Jorge Camacho

INTRODUCTION. Why electric infrastructure is so important compared to water supply? How we can restore the natural balance? Cyberspace does not exist without electricity, humanity cannot survive without water. It is possible to take advantage of using electric grid for helping improve water resources. Transmission towers’ structure with an additional structural...

"The Ocean Above Us," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-10-01T11:30:00-04:00

In the face of events that exceed our capacity for comprehension, humans tend to invent myths and stories that render things palatable. The passage of the sun across the firmament, the surge of the oceans in a storm, the crash of thunder that follows the flash of lightning – these all have been attributed to the actions of gods, demons, etc. Even when a more precise or scientific answer is available, humans tend to rely on these stories to help explain complex phenomena to children. What stories will humans of the future invent to understand our time of ecological crises? The Ocean Above Us Honorary Mention proposal takes the form of such a fable, sited in a speculative future in which humans reach to the skies to quench their thirst.

The Ocean Above Us, by Jake Boswell

“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical r...

"Playing with Fire: Golf takes a new Course of action," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-10-01T09:00:00-04:00

Consuming disproportionately-vast quantities of water for the recreational pleasure of a small (typically elite) group of people, golf courses often become a first line of attack during droughts. But what if they could be appropriated in order to help mitigate the effects of a water shortage? The Playing with Fire: Golf takes a new Course of action Honorable Mention proposal is a proactive – incendiary, even – reimagining of the the role of golf courses in Southern California.

Playing with Fire: Golf takes a new Course of action, by Mark Faulkner

Fire has historically been a regular and natural presence in California’s environment. As the landscape becomes drier the threat to residents grows. Fire suppression can lead to greater fire catastrophe further down the line as fuels build up. The Wildland Urban Interface will continue to expand and California needs to plan for increased fire presence and to consider fire as a factor in design.

Golf Courses have become a key recreation for re...

"The Continental Compact," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-09-30T11:30:00-04:00

While the current drought is likely linked to larger issues like climate change, California has always had cycles of dry and wet seasons, as well as regular drought periods. But, for thousands of years, the inhabitants of the region were (for the most part) able to survive times of water scarcity – in part because there was, frankly, less of them. As anyone whose seen Chinatown knows, Los Angeles as we know it today is only possible because of the massive projects that pipe water in from out of state. While this was undoubtedly an infrastructural feat, it was also a policy one. The Continental Compact Honorable Mention considers historical hydro-policies in order to imagine radically different futures.

The Continental Compact by Ian Caine, Co-Designer, Derek Hoeferlin, AIA, Co-Designer, Emily Chen, Illustrator and Researcher, Tiffin Thompson, Illustrator and Researcher, Pablo Chavez, Illustrator.

The drought crisis in California is first and foremost a political crisis. Decades of pub...

"Growing Energy from Waste: a natural twist on Direct Potable Reuse," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-09-30T09:00:00-04:00

Long abandoned to the shadows of architectural thinking, the proverbial "throne" of the house – the toilet – is beginning to make a bit of a comeback, taking a central role in last year's Venice Biennial, and making an occasional appearance in Archinect features. While it may upset our lingering Victorian sensibilities, toilets – and what they flush – are an integral aspect of the contemporary house and the modern city. In the context of a drought crisis, these water-vaccuums take on a different hue. The "Growing Energy from Waste: a natural twist on Direct Potable Reuse" Honorable Mention submission reexamines the toilet and its contents within a larger framework, proposing using existing algae technology to treat our wastewater.

Growing Energy from Waste: a natural twist on Direct Potable Reuse, by Prentiss Darden and Algae Systems LLC

In Southern California, we fill our toilets with water that has traveled over 400 miles, consuming great amounts of energy and emitting carbon dioxid...

"Hold the Salt," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-09-29T11:30:00-04:00

One of the great ironies of the California drought crisis – or at least one that's repeatedly mentioned – is that the thirsty state borders the theoretically-endless water reserves of the Pacific Ocean. But, of course, closer examination reveals that a) desalination is no simple task and b) the saltwater, in fact, poses one of the great challenges to our water reserves, constantly threatening to leach into aging infrastructure. The Hold the Salt Honorable Mention submission takes the tenuous relationship between salty and fresh water as the starting point for an expansive proposal involving large-scale infrastructural rehabilitation and conversion.

Hold the Salt, by Erik Jensen and Richard Crockett

California’s water system depends upon a fragile balance of inbound saline water against outbound fresh water from the state’s watersheds. This tenuous and shifting watermark of salt intrusion is continually maintained with aggressively engineered systems controls. This year California w...

"Freshly Squeezed- Survival on the Fringes," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-09-29T09:00:00-04:00

Part and parcel to the image of Orange County in the popular imagination, the suburban tract home is a ubiquitous, popular, and oft-derided element of the Southern California architecture vernacular. The Freshly Squeezed: Survival on the Fringes Honorable Mention proposal crafts an extended timeline for this housing typology, revisiting its history and imagining its position in a speculative future marked by natural disasters and resource scarcity.

Freshly Squeezed: Survival on the Fringes, by Robert Alexander

For 60 years, the Orange County suburban tract house has been a model real estate product for living and consumption in Southern California. Thousands of homes were built following this model of development: large single family houses (2000 to 4000 square feet), built of wood frames with stucco and generally occupying the center 50 to 60 percent of their lots. These houses demonstrated efficiency in their construction and in their ability to sell quickly, but were usually design...

"APART, WE ARE TOGETHER," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-09-28T10:09:00-04:00

Coping with California's drought and ensuing water restrictions have been stressful for everyone in the state, but some bear that stress more heavily than others. In Apart, We Are Together, the state's most affluent members will manage to detach the water infrastructure from everyone else to continue buying water at whatever cost, while the lesser-haves must get by with whatever's left, resulting in a drastically divided California.

APART, WE ARE TOGETHER, by El Hadi Jazairy and Rania Ghosn

California will not be homogeneously dry. Its main geographic challenge is economic and political.

With 21 spots on the list of 30 neighborhoods with the highest percentage of million dollar homes, the taxpayers in these zip codes will pay for desalted water, a cost nearly twice as expensive as the rate for imported water was. They will ramp up their infrastructure to convert salty ocean water into drinking water to quench their long-term thirst. (Don’t worry about the intensive energy needs of such...

"HydroForest," an honorable mention in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-09-28T09:09:00-04:00

Used in some of the world's driest places, fog-catchers can turn atmospheric moisture into potable water, effective on scales small and large – it's used by the South African Namib Desert beetle as an evolutionary trick to stay hydrated, and by a Chilean brewery to make beer. The HydroForest Honorable Mention proposal calls for a community-run fog-catching system in the famously foggy San Francisco, where residents can be responsible for their own moisture-trapping canopy in a local public space.

HydroForest, by Difei Chen and Ted Ngai (Advisor, RPI)

The HydroForest is a project that attempts to address climate change, namely the water crisis in California, through a crowd sourcing urban intervention strategy of implementing low-tech fog collectors to create what we call Community Owned and Managed Public Space (COMPS). This strategy takes precedence in how urban trees are managed in many cities, where residences can take responsibility of a tree pit in front of their properties and c...

"Analogue Sustainability: The Climate Refugees of San Francisco," 3rd place winner in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-09-16T14:00:00-04:00

Analogue Sustainability: 'The Climate Refugees of San Francisco,' by Rosa Prichard

The project is sited on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The scheme tackles the Californian paradox of too much vs too little water. While the area is in a state of drought, San Francisco Bay is still at risk of flooding both from seasonal heavy rainfall and rising sea levels. The project is an inhabited flood defence wall that wraps around the island, housing those displaced by rising sea levels in the bay. A field condition of maize is planted over the island to draw out the radiation remaining from the island’s naval occupation. The island becomes a self-sustaining system, where analogue technologies that hark back to industrial mechanisms are used. The island offers a celebration of a more simple and natural way of life, in contrast to that of San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Sustainable systems of water purification and energy production become central to the building. The burning of the maiz...

"Grassroots Cactivism," 1st place winner in Dry Futures Speculative category

2015-09-16T14:00:00-04:00

Grassroots Cactivism, by Ali Chen

California is entering the fourth year of an epic drought. Urban households have reduced water usage by 25%. However, legislation does not apply to farmers, while 80% of the state's water usage goes towards agricultural production. A large percentage of that water goes towards crops that feed livestock. Efforts to conserve water need to target these water-intensive aspects of the farming industry.

California's unique arid and mediterranean climate plays host to a variety of indigenous species. Among these is the drought-tolerant nopales cactus, otherwise known as the prickly pear. It has existed as a food source in local culinary traditions for many centuries, and is also commonly used as fodder for livestock in times of drought.

There is another lesser-known use of the nopales: its pulp acts as a cleaning agent for water. Locals in Mexico have often dumped the water used to cook cactus into polluted rivers and streams. The 'mucilage' or inner cactus ...

"Liquid Bank", 2nd place winner in Dry Futures Pragmatic category

2015-09-16T14:00:00-04:00

Every drop counts

Liquid Bank, by Juan Saez

Liquid Bank confronts California’s drought from both a local and global perspective. The project addresses the relationship between domestic water consumption and the global water crisis with the development of water related infrastructure in emerging countries. Ultimately, the project aims to address California’s drought emergency situation by causing a behavioral shift amongst California residents.

Liquid Bank is a platform (app and website) that offers a system of rewards and incentives that encourage users to use water responsibly in both their domestic and corporate life.

Users sign-up for a profile at LiquidBank.com and begin earning the Liquid Bank’s digital currency, Aquo. Users can earn Aquos through implementing a variety of water-saving habits: installing low flow shower heads or faucet aerators, incorporating container gardening or drought resistant plants, reducing their household water bill or, as an enterprise, developing a plan...