water is alive

Water is Alive – Purification as a Resource won third prize in a 2014 competition to convert three wastewater treatment plants on Lake Maggiore, in the province of Varese: Maccagno, Porto Valtravaglia and Luino.

Treatment plants are usually hidden and shunned places, even though they do something essential: they bring water back to life. The project reverses this image and turns these "non-places" into pleasant, educational public spaces open to all, where water, with its movement and transformations, becomes the centre of the architecture.

In Maccagno, on the Giona stream, the existing buildings become a "river hatchery" for breeding native trout (marble, lake and Mediterranean brown trout), run with the local anglers' association. A raised walkway leads visitors past the tanks; a top-lit classroom looks onto a nine-metre river aquarium recreating the stream's ecosystem. The buildings are clad in local, zero-mile materials: weathered metal, timber and stone. In Porto Valtravaglia, the disused plant, a few metres from the beaches, becomes a sports and leisure centre: skate ramps on the green roof, a 17-metre climbing tower with a lake view, an adventure park, parking and storage for boats and sports gear. In Luino, where the plant stays in operation, a purification theme park opens: a raised visitor route follows the water from inflow to clean water, for schools and residents.

Sustainable architecture and regeneration linking people and nature along Lake Maggiore.