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The flood-prone areas and agricultural soils along the Bogotá River in Colombia face a continuously increasing conflict between urban development, including low-cost housing projects, and environmental needs. This research investigates how current contested relations between water, settlement patterns, and productive landscapes can be turned into a constructive interplay. This paper presents a water urbanism research project, which uses interpretative mapping and research by design to critically understand the evolution of the relationship between water and settlements in the peri-urban areas of Funza and Mosquera. The project develops landscape typologies for adaptation and mitigation in view of climate change and to address demands of urbanisation in the Bogotá River floodplain. The paper demonstrates how designing with water can re-qualify the peripheral areas of Bogotá, solving both qualitative and quantitative water issues, delivering a framework for new housing fabrics, and creating new sustainable relations between different water uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paradigm shift in water management is recognized as a necessary and fundamental step for adaptation to climate change and crucial for furthering sustainability. In contexts of rapid urbanization, this paradigm shift is particularly challenged since social and environmental needs often come into conflict. In Bogotá, as other Latin-American cities, demands for new housing are increasing daily, while the overall housing deficit remains an unresolved problem. Currently, the city faces the challenges to deal with the pressure to continue to urbanize flood prone areas with low-cost housing projects and simultaneously protect these areas in view of flooding, which promise to increase with the predictions of climate change. In order to contribute to context-responsive solutions to the water and housing issues, this paper investigates the shifting relations between settlement patterns, water infrastructure and landscape in Bogotá's El Tintal watershed. This sub-watershed of the Bogotá River has a rich history of formal and informal low-cost housing. The critical reading of the landscape transformation of the El Tintal has shown how the water system interventions were and can be instrumental in different stages of development. This reading was the base to elaborate design investigations that could translate to spatial adaptation measures. This paper argues that “soft” water management tools can be part of a twofold strategy to create spatial quality and provide resilience for more qualitative future urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]