Connected Vessels: An Open-Loop Water System Woven into Public Landscape

What if a public plaza could function like a living organism, drinking in rainwater, filtering it through its own infrastructure, and breathing it back out? Connected Vessels proposes exactly that: an open-loop water system where a series of interconnected vessels collect, purify on-site, and release water in a continuous cycle. The result is not merely a park or a plaza but a self-sustaining hydrological landscape, one that treats water management as spatial design rather than hidden engineering.

Designed by Shai Haber-Thaler, Connected Vessels was a shortlisted entry for Ripple, a competition focused on water-conscious design. The project integrates natural filtration systems, permeable surfaces, rain gardens, and underground cisterns into a landscape that doubles as generous public space. Green corridors, shaded pathways, and native vegetation work alongside the hydrological infrastructure to promote biodiversity, urban cooling, and community life.

Archways and Corridors That Frame a Living System

The entry sequence sets the tone immediately. A curved archway frames a tree-lined pathway flanked by pink flowering plants, drawing visitors into the landscape rather than past it. The arch is not decorative; it functions as a threshold between the conventional streetscape and the regenerative interior of the site. Beyond it, a plaza with diamond-patterned paving and timber benches sits beneath established trees, offering a gathering space that feels settled and permanent despite being designed from scratch.

These spaces prioritize community engagement by making the water infrastructure legible and inviting. You don't just pass through; you sit, observe the planted corridors, and begin to understand that the ground beneath you is working. The paving patterns are not arbitrary. They signal the permeable surfaces below, a quiet nod to the hydrological engineering that makes the entire project function.

Stone, Concrete, and Planted Terraces as Water Infrastructure

The project's material palette is deliberate. Curved stone walls run alongside stepped concrete terraces planted with grasses, creating a topography that channels and slows water movement. These are not retaining walls in the conventional sense; they are the vessels of the title, guiding collected rainwater through planted zones where natural filtration occurs before the water moves deeper into the system.

A secondary plaza introduces a circular planted bed surrounded by pink flowering trees and a bronze statue, anchoring the space with a civic focal point. The design moves between the ecological and the social with confidence: rain gardens and native vegetation do the work of purification, while the spatial composition invites people to linger. The symbiosis is real, not metaphorical. Visitors experience it physically by walking the terraces, sitting among the planted grasses, and watching stormwater become landscape.

Sections Reveal the Hidden Cisterns and Permeable Ground

The three section drawings are where the project's ambition becomes fully legible. The first shows an outdoor shower feature fed by an underground cistern, with the pathway and surrounding landscape forming a continuous surface above the hidden infrastructure. The second section cuts through sloped terrain to reveal how the cistern sits beneath a sculptural shower element, using gravity and topography to move water without mechanical pumping. It is a clean piece of hydrological engineering dressed in the language of landscape architecture.

The third section focuses on the permeable paving surface itself, showing the layers beneath the ground plane that allow water to infiltrate rather than run off. Pink flowering trees and pedestrians occupy the surface, but the real action is below: gravel beds, filter layers, and storage volumes that complete the open-loop cycle. Together, these drawings make the argument that regenerative urban planning is not an add-on but a structural principle. Every surface, slope, and planting decision serves the water system.

Why This Project Matters

Connected Vessels offers a replicable model for climate-conscious urban infrastructure. Rather than treating stormwater management as an engineering problem to be buried underground and forgotten, the project surfaces its logic, literally and spatially. Cisterns, permeable paving, rain gardens, and natural filtration become the generators of public space rather than obstacles to it. The design argues that resilient landscapes and generous civic spaces are the same thing.

Shai Haber-Thaler's contribution is not just a landscape proposal; it is a position on how cities should metabolize water. The open-loop system, where collection, purification, and release happen in sequence across a walkable public terrain, suggests that the next generation of urban parks will be defined less by their aesthetic signature and more by what they do. Connected Vessels does a great deal, quietly and legibly, and that restraint is its strength.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Shai Haber-Thaler

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Project credits: Connected Vessels by Shai Haber-Thaler Ripple (uni.xyz).