Architects TANAT and Rizoma del Agua explore domestic water storage systems in Chimalhuacán.
Design firms TANAT and Rizoma del Agua have completed Rain Rhizome, a 358-square-meter urban installation in Chimalhuacán, Mexico. Lead architects Diego Rivero Borrell and Lucía Lozano developed the project to address the reorganization of drinking water in Mexican cities. Where public networks fail, a dense economy of substitution has emerged, involving plastic bottles, twenty-liter garrafones, rooftop tanks, and domestic filters. The project highlights how water access has become a daily practice of calculation and informal delivery. This spatial culture transfers the responsibility of management to households and individual bodies that must carry, clean, and store water before consumption. Constructed in 2025 with support from Grohe, Rotoplas, and Veleta, the structure documents the routines of storage and purification shops that define the current urban landscape. The work serves as a physical record of the infrastructure used to navigate water scarcity in the region.
The project demonstrates how designers can map informal economic systems and domestic routines into physical structures. It shows makers how to translate complex social challenges into specific spatial and material narratives.
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