Sean Savage
This projects focus is on the rural region of Idanha-a-Nova in Portugal. The aim is to establish an emergent urbanism on what is at present considered an inhospitable terrain of topographical extremes. However, these extremes have the potential to maximise the value of water as a "collectable" and "reusable" resource. Various water retention systems are proposed, which retain water within a number of parallel tributary valleys. Dependent on gradient, these systems develop intensive agriculture or water storage. The resulting urbanism is directly linked to the "productivity" of these systems and evolves as a suspended three dimensional grid, in which various sub structures for living, processing etc can be inserted. The grid itself is an organic system, sucking up water, recycling waste and acting as a frame for vegetative and algae production (amongst other sources of renewable energy).
