Walking Over Water

The jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, is home to hundreds of ruins of the advanced Stone Age society of the Maya, inclusive of cities connected by extensive road networks and water infrastructure systems. As climate change prompts designers to take closer looks at vernacular landscapes, this thesis presents a set of case studies of the pre-Columbian vernacular landscape of the Mayan cities Tulu’um, Ek’Balam, and Kob’áh that illustrate how these settlements were designed to capture and store potable water. The Maya engineered integrated runoff management systems into the city that captured and retained rainwater into chultuns, aguadas, and reservoirs, and thus guaranteed water access during all seasons. In addition to critical site maps of the water management systems, the case studies consist of a literature review of the sociopolitical history of the region and photogrammetry models of sample reservoirs and wells. In situ observations and photographic records describe the remnant materiality of these vernacular designs, which used simple clays to ensure the waterproofing of locally sourced stone structures. The sophistication of the masonry that created these structures is evident in the stability of the ruins, and is visually testified in the detailed three-dimensional models produced by photogrammetry. The resulting study links the water infrastructure to a highly sophisticated integration of the physical structure of the landscape with built form that can serve as a model for efficient and sustainable contemporary water infrastructure systems that respond to seasonal changes in water availability.

_{The Yucatán Peninsula hosts one of the largest systems of entirely sub-aquatic caverns in the world, and most of the surface water in the region drains underground to feed these subterranean rivers. Access to these rivers is fairly rare, and mainly happens when a cave collapses to create a cenote. The lack of surface water makes the abundant rainfall the greatest resource of freshwater in the region.}

_{The Maya created a peninsula-wide network of roads (pictured as white lines). During my site visits, I went to cities connected to this network as major local nodes. These nodal cities were near large numbers of cenotes, making them major reservoirs for drought seasons, as well as major centers of trade, religion, and military force.}

_{Cenotes can be open air, enclosed, or part of a lake. To access these small sources of water, you can climb down into the cave or build a well and drop the bucket through the cave into the water at the bottom.}

_{An above-ground basin in the paint-making area of Coba, which would have been used to collect runoff for future use.}

_{Another above-ground basin, behind a pyramid, that would have collected water for ceremonial uses.}

_{An example of a well over a cenote, one that drew freshwater from the enclosed cenote shown above.}

View the final version of this thesis here!Download

Walking Over Water

Share this: