The communication of ideas for future cities should go beyond false assurances and easy gratification to promote a rich, nuanced awareness of both risk and reward. To explore these thoughts, I drew a living below-ground condition as the basis for three process-driven strategic scenarios to mitigate impending urban water issues. Each scenario links an aspect of water infrastructure (infiltration, storage, and transfer) that transforms or in the case of the waffle cistern, sustains human lifestyles while reviving the lifeless sub-grade gray matter generated by carpet urbanism.

Proposed technologies to recover that robust ground derive from past measures, current practices, and emerging material research. Representation of the proposals was part of the design mission to imagine alternative future urban ecosystems. The drawings run the gamut from wonkish technical illustrations to fantastical renderings of a dramatic subterranean world alive with soil bacteria, nematodes, and other crucial soil micro-biota that are inextricable within the city above.