Aqua Incognita III, IV: Designing for Extreme Climate Resilience in Monterrey, [MX] is a Studio Report from the Fall 2023 and 2024 semesters at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design based on the studios taught by Lorena Bello Gómez.

Aqua Incognita continued to engage students in grappling with water-resilient urbanization processes, through the design of systems-based reparative actions in the water-scarce region of Monterrey, Mexico. Mexico’s industrial cradle, and a region undergoing a nearshoring industrial boom, this metropolis of 5.4 million people is threatened by critically unbalanced water regimes. While facing its own version of a Day-Zero crisis in the summers of 2022-3, the city has also withstood recurrent flooding catastrophes over the years. These extreme climatic events are likely to intensify amidst the warming of our planet.

With the objective of catalyzing actions that could trigger a more resilient water future in Monterrey, the studio focused on one of Monterrey’s most strategic Critical Zones: the Santa Catarina River. The restoration and conservation of this river basin and riparian corridor is key to the future of water security, the reduction of flood risk, and the equitable distribution of safe and healthy biodiverse areas across the city towards climate justice. Achieving these three objectives is part of a contested vision today. The studio established a collaboration with experts, citizen groups, academia, the government, and the regional conservation institution Terra Habitus (studio sponsor) to push the transformation of this river watershed into a climate-resilient and ecologically stable region in the near future.

Read this report on issuu .