How can landscape design improve the social and psychological conditions in the city improving the ecological stewardship of water?

This thesis explores, through architectural design, the potential for human habitation to occur alongside a positive impact on the environment. Using water as the focal point, it will explore through architectural and landscape design how water resources for the city can be localized. Clean water can benefit the city both ecologically and socially. This design aspires to provide a sensual experience of water to benefit the public spaces of the city of Ottawa, while educating the public about responsible interaction with this fragile resource. Water is about balance. It has a dual symbolism as it is both an agent that cleans and an agent that purifies. Too much or too little water equals death for most creatures. The nature of water is sensitive and sacrificial. To clean, it must take the dirt as its own burden. The burden is now on us to preserve this precious resource;"... [we must] reflect on the bond the imagination creates between two kinds of stuff from which a city is made: urban space and urban water.” This research is about water as a landscape material, water as a resource, and how both of these aspects affect the urban condition.