the.com/water plaza
a plaza that's dry ninety percent of the time and a swimming pool the other ten.
means a public square engineered to flood on purpose, turning storm runoff into a playground before draining it away.
from pioneered in rotterdam in the 2010s, where a country used to fighting water decided to invite it in instead, designing sunken plazas that catch rain, hold it as a temporary lake, then release it slowly into the sewer system.
dual purposebasketball court by day, retention basin by storm
capacitybenthemplein holds 1.7 million liters of rainwater
drainage speedempties within 36 hours after rain stops
cost logiccheaper than building underground storm tunnels
for instance
benthemplein rotterdam — the original, opened 2013, three basins deep
spoorpark tilburg — dutch water plaza doubling as a skate park
prinsenland benthemplein — copenhagen and nyc later borrowed the model directly