Embassy of Water builds the house that restores water
If it were up to the Embassy of Water, cities and villages would contribute to the resilience and health of the entire water ecosystem. The city and its inhabitants work together with and for water. Those who use water in a new way, borrow it from the cycle and give it back clean. The result is a water flow as fresh and vital as a sparkling mountain stream. The question that the partners of the Embassy of Water are asking themselves is, therefore: ‘How can we ensure that the million homes that are going to be developed in the Netherlands make a positive contribution to the water system?
Water welfare in the first place
Just managing water sustainably is no longer enough’, says curator Anouk van der Poll. Nowadays, the discussion should focus on how we can ensure that the water system can recover, and regenerate itself. If we design homes and neighbourhoods to purify water rather than pollute it, utilise rainwater and reuse water, this will also restore the water in the area. In this way, through our homes, we all become water suppliers instead of water users and we prevent water from becoming a scarce resource. In this way, collectively, we will put water welfare first.
Sustainable water technologies already exist
There are already enough ideas and techniques to make a water-positive approach possible. There is also a desire to do things differently. It is no longer logical for us to flush our toilets with precious drinking water. But we are not yet seeing this necessary transition in regular new building constructions. Why are sustainable water technologies not yet applied in the new buildings? Together with designers, we map out the obstacles and, together with pioneers in the world of construction and water, we look for opportunities and examples of how to do things differently.
Regenerative thinking: humans as part of nature
In the coming years, we will turn Eindhoven into a ‘community of practice’. This means that we will discover together how we can best look after water and how we can best design for water. One of the ways we are doing this is by putting the Voice of Water, someone who stands up for the desires of water, at the table in area development and construction projects. Regenerative housing is not only about the physical outcome, it is also about restoring our connection with nature and the awareness that we are part of it. In this way, we create homes that reconnect us with water.
