Water is re-conquering the contemporary agenda of urbanism. The renewed focus for urbanists is not uncalled for. Rather, its disappearance during the heydays of urbanism in the 19th and 20th century is remarkable. Water Urbanismshas three main sections. Water Cultures. Essays on Water Urbanism elaborates interplays of urbanism and water in different cultures and regions. Another Water Urbanism. Vietnamese Urban Projectsgives a podium to recent experimental projects and studies in Vietnam, a country that is on the verge of literally drowning in water. Explorations and Speculations. Excerpts of Water Urbanism gathers a wide range of excerpts from recent and ongoing urban design explorations of existing and potential relations between water and urbanism.
Water Urbanism is the first volume in the Urbanism Fascicles Series (UFO). The series is envisioned as a platform for investigations into urbanism at the crossroads of theory and practice, history and new challenges, iconography and text; it aims to critically document worthwhile episodes of on-going research in the field of urbanism. The progressive accumulation of the series' fascicles will incrementally generate a component of the contemporary archives of urbanism. It seeks to not only re-read / re-write urban histories, but also search for new tools to describe, understand, interpret and qualitatively and structurally intervene in the transformative processes conditioning urbanism.