Hydro power is one of the cleanest sources of renewable energy on earth with a long history of exploitation. The conventional methods of harnessing this energy which mainly involve building dams on the rivers and natural reservoirs have caused some irreversible environmental impacts; large scale hydropower plants are being decommissioned every year and the tendency increases towards the use of this energy on smaller scales.
Architecture today merges with technology and sustainable design. If the hydropower plants can be integrated into the building units, the future of urban design and architecture will not be separated from energy production. Perhaps, the plan of the future cities will be based on the idea of energy-producing units. Therefore, the role of architects and designers in integrating such units into the body of cities and building structures will become more critical.

“Designed for Water” intends to encourage designers to apply hydraulic design ideas in the design and planning of future cities. In this book, number of the hydraulic/ hydropower projects with unique characteristics were selected to not only emphasize their distinctive design and mechanisms, but also to reflect their architectural design capacities. Each chapter of this book highlights specific design feature or invention that makes the selected projects unique in comparison with the other hydropower plants/ hydraulic projects around the world. This book, therefore, is formed around the following topics: a historic precedent integrating the hydropower plants with urban spaces; an innovative barrier; the integration of hydropower plants with their surrounding landscape; an innovative small scale hydropower plant for low head flows; network of interconnected hydropower plants; and, inventive turbines.