The project is located in Goole, a deprived, postindustrial town in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Currently, Goole is home to the country’s most inland port and has attracted future infrastructural investment from Siemens. The proposal seeks to tie into Goole’s history as a town built from the water; both on its land which was first drained in the 17th century, and its historic industrial base as a port and centre for shipping.

The aims of the proposal are twofold. Firstly, to provide a basis for research and to act as an entry into the global water management industry. Secondly, it seeks to reinvigorate the riverfront near the docks.

The project proposes a research centre on the banks of the River Ouse. Sitting at the centre of the confluence of two tidal rivers and the managed levels of the Ouse docks, the project seeks to explore water at multiple scales. At the landscape scale, through speculation on what the future of water management may look like, asking questions of infrastructure and landscape. Secondly, as a networked installation at the scale of the town. Finally, and thirdly, at the scale of the building, through relationships to water.