Aquifère is an experimental prototype installed in Villa Medici’s orange garden. The project is grounded in the interaction between porous materials and water, activating elementary physical principles to produce cooling without mechanical energy.
The mineral plinth is made from by-products of travertine quarried in Tivoli, 30 km from Rome. Set into this base, a series of terracotta vases (ollas) forms a system of communicating vessels that distributes water evenly throughout the installation. Water spreads across the surface of the ollas, moistening the stone before evaporating on contact with the warm air. This slow and discreet process absorbs heat and contributes to lowering the surrounding temperature by at least 2°C, in dialogue with the shade of the orange trees and the movement of the air. Travertine behaves like a reservoir rock: its porosity allows it to absorb, retain, and release water, preserving the mineral memory of the flows that shaped it.
Aquifère explores a passive urban cooling system that could be replicated in other contexts, while also questioning the capacity of public space to become an infrastructure of thermal comfort.
