Aqua Incognita I, II: Deciphering and Reimagining Liquidity in the Mexican Altiplano

Aqua Incognita I, II: Deciphering and Reimagining Liquidity in the Mexican Altiplano is a Studio Report from the Fall 2021 and 2022 semesters at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design based on the studio taught by Lorena Bello Gómez. Aqua Incognita engages students in research by design, furthering the Harvard GSD’s focus on Mexico’s urbanization challenges, by advancing nature-based reparative actions in the water-scarce Apan Plains of the Central Mexican altiplano. This critical zone—originally a wetland territory and today bordering the thirstiest region of the nation, Mexico City—is engaged with unsustainable water scarcity urbanization.

Aquifer depletion by global commodity chains; unequitable distribution and non-circular management of water; and extractive land and resources practices, have started a process of cultural, biophysical, and territorial desiccation that is now further triggered by climate change.

With the objective of helping communities that are struggling to see a viable future, the studios focused on the critical design question of how we can return liquidity to these former aquageographies and livelihoods. The studios formed part of a multi-year project collaboration between Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, local universities, the municipality of Apan, six Ejido (collective) commissariats, and a local urbanism and landscape office (eeTestudio).

Series Design by Zak Jensen and Laura Grey
Report design by Celina Abba and Lorena Bello Gómez

206 pages, 17 x 24.5 cm