Ayacucho is one of Peru’s fastest growing cities: in the past ten years its population has increased sixfold. This growth, in combination with the water shortage due to climate change puts a great pressure on local urban livelihoods and compromises the original ecosystem of the Cachi River and its surrounding basin.
Embedding water recycling infrastructure into the public space and relating it to the shared culture of water are important foundations for local involvement in tackling this water crisis.
The project focuses on the outskirts of the city since that is where the blueprint of the future city is drawn by self-organising squatter settlements.
Given this context, a new question arises: how to position oneself as a designer in a context where the ‘act of designing’ is absent?
The project tries to re-root ancient Andean knowledge in the ‘urban’ Andean culture. The architect as translator, translating ancient, Andean water infrastructures to a new, urban context.