When Water Does Not Cool: A Different Use of Water in Urban Design

This paper explores the implications that recent evidence on the negligible cooling effects of water can have for urban design practice. It tackles the misconception of using small urban water bodies to cool down urban areas and addresses a different approach to employing water in climate-responsive urban design. The “Nieuwe Mark” project, Breda, The Netherlands, is presented as to illustrate and develop these ideas. The results of an online questionnaire sent out to the design team of Nieuwe Mark show an unanimous acceptance about the misconception of using water as a coolant and indicate a change of mindset for future water-related projects. The article discusses the results obtained and concludes about the long-term implications that such change of mindset can have to the employment of water in urban design. The main outcome is that when water is not necessarily a coolant, urban design practice has the opportunity to rethink its approach to small urban water bodies by embracing holistic design approaches combining water body, shade, wind and water vaporisation.