The Aqua Incognita studio series follows research by design pedagogy to envision resilience in water-stressed territories. Focusing on the metropolitan region of Valencia, Spain, Aqua Incognita VI addresses the increasing fluidity between prolonged droughts and catastrophic DANA floods that in October 2024 took a heavy toll on human life, the environment, and infrastructure. How do we break free from this Sisyphean destructive cycle? Can the flood be transformed into an opportunity for socio-ecological regeneration?

This summer, Valencia is entering a decisive new phase of post-DANA recovery. The Valencia Regional government has announced an international competition for the masterplan of the Metropolitan Floodable Parks System, a 1,500-hectare blue-green infrastructure extending along the Turia River and the Poyo and Saleta ravines. Conceived as one of Europe’s most ambitious territorial regeneration projects, the initiative seeks to transform flood-prone landscapes into a continuous network of public open spaces capable of reducing flood risk while restoring ecological systems and strengthening metropolitan connectivity.

Rather than treating this competition as a fixed framework, the studio will critically engage with its ambitions, exploring complementary design strategies and alternative futures for the Horta Sud.

Horta Sud is the territory most severely impacted during the 2024 catastrophic floods along the Poyo Ravine. Separated from Valencia by the 1969 Turia River flood-control channel, the Horta Sud municipalities have evolved into an urban continuum, embedded within the Horta and the Albufera. The Horta, a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) by UN FAO, is a millennium-old agroecological landscape sustained by a still-functioning network of gravity-fed acequias introduced during the Islamic period. The Albufera–Spain’s largest freshwater lagoon with RAMSAR protection–sits within the Parc Natural de l’Albufera. This cultural landscape, featuring traditional barracas, alquerías, and molinos, is collectively managed through irrigator communities and the Tribunal de las Aguas, Spain’s oldest water court–also with UNESCO recognition.

Building on previous work, students will investigate how design can transform episodic flood events into long-term spatial, ecological, and material opportunities–supporting soil regeneration, wetland restoration, enhancing water quality, and new forms of housing and earthen construction techniques. Through this lens, the studio advances a hydro-social and ecological material framework, where water and earth are understood as interdependent cycles shaping the territory and not enemies to defend against.

Working across scales–from watershed to settlement to lagoon–students will produce critical cartographies, engage with local actors, professors, and experts during our trip to Valencia, and develop site-specific design proposals. These proposals will aim to reduce flood risk while enhancing hydrological performance and the continuation of historical water and material cultures.

This studio is supported by the Koji Yanai Innovative Infrastructure Initiative Fund and the LUMA Landscape and Ecology Research Series.
 

Note regarding the Fall 2026 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Wednesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This studio will meet for the first time on Thursday, September 3rd.