GAD Editorial · Published · · English study · Chinese summary · Study dated 2026-10-06
Water can occupy a public space, pass through it or be kept outside it. Those are different architectural tasks, even when photographs show similar combinations of paving, planting and reflective surfaces. Benthemplein in Rotterdam, Tainan Spring and Friendship Centre in Gaibandha make the distinction visible. Their ground levels organise three different relationships between everyday use and water.
At Benthemplein, designed by De Urbanisten, rainwater storage and recreation share the same excavated spaces. The architect describes three basins: two shallow ones receive runoff from the immediate surroundings, while a deeper basin takes water from a larger catchment during sustained rain. Visible stainless-steel gutters carry water across the square. In dry conditions, the basins support activities including wheeled play and sport.
The important design decision is the change of use over time. A court that can hold water has to be read in both its occupied and flooded states. Its edges must make sense as places to sit or watch, as changes in level and as parts of a drainage system. The visible channels allow visitors to understand something of that system, although the appearance of a channel cannot establish its capacity or maintenance condition.
Tainan Spring, by MVRDV with local collaborators, also places water below the surrounding city. Its starting point, however, is a former shopping mall's underground parking level. Retained structural fragments, a shaded arcade, planting and a pool give the excavated space a new public use. MVRDV describes water levels intended to vary with rainy and dry seasons, alongside misting for hot weather.
That description supports a reading of seasonal occupation. It does not establish that Tainan Spring performs the same stormwater-storage task as Benthemplein. The former mall provides an inherited spatial depth; the Rotterdam square explicitly uses basins as temporary runoff storage. Comparing them is most useful when those different briefs remain visible. A pool's water source, treatment and operating regime matter as much as its outline on a landscape plan.
At Friendship Centre, Kashef Chowdhury / URBANA addresses another condition. The training complex occupies low-lying land in a flood-prone setting. The Aga Khan project record describes an embankment and runoff-pumping facility, while courtyards and reflecting pools organise space inside the protected boundary. Rainwater collection tanks also form part of the project. Water within the institution and floodwater outside it consequently belong to different systems.
Our reading is that the embankment changes the meaning of the whole site. The low buildings can form an intimate network of courts because the perimeter takes on a protective role. That role remains dependent on the designed flood assumptions and continued operation; it is not an assurance against every future event.
A useful comparative section should therefore distinguish water admitted for temporary storage, water maintained for public occupation and water excluded from occupied ground. Add the route by which each system empties, together with the spaces people use when conditions change. This produces a more precise account of water architecture than treating every attractive basin as interchangeable evidence of climate resilience.