RESOURCE:MANNHEIM is a research-driven initiative exploring water-sensitive urban design, circular water systems, and the idea of a "Zero Water City"
Project overview
RESOURCE:MANNHEIM is a research-driven initiative exploring water-sensitive urban design, circular water systems, and the idea of a "Zero Water City" — a model for how cities can reclaim, reuse, and integrate water into their everyday infrastructure. The project needed a digital home that could speak to researchers, urban planners, and institutions while still being accessible to a wider public. The brief was to translate dense ecological research into a clear, navigable platform without flattening its scientific weight.
Challenges
Turning research into something people will actually read. Water-sensitive urban design sits at the intersection of hydrology, planning, and public policy — most of its documentation lives in PDFs and conference papers. The site had to surface the same depth of information without the academic friction, so the structure had to do real work: short entry points for casual readers, deeper layers for specialists, and clear paths between them.
Avoiding the visual defaults of "eco" design. Sustainability projects often fall into a familiar palette of leafy greens, hand-drawn icons, and lifestyle photography that reads more like a wellness brand than a research initiative. RESOURCE:MANNHEIM needed to feel future-facing and technically credible — closer to the visual language of urban planning and systems thinking than environmentalism — without losing warmth or human scale.
Serving multiple audiences from a single surface. The site had to function as a project platform for the team, a reference for collaborating institutions, and a communication tool for residents and press — three audiences with very different reading habits. The information architecture, type hierarchy, and section pacing all had to absorb that range, letting each audience find what they need without forcing the others through it.
Results
he finished site reframes RESOURCE:MANNHEIM as a piece of public-facing infrastructure in its own right — modular layouts, map-influenced compositions, and data-driven graphic moments let complex water-cycle ideas land at a glance, while deeper sections give researchers and planners the detail they came for. Generous whitespace and a restrained typographic system carry the scientific tone without making the content feel cold. The system was designed to grow with the research: new case studies, team members, and news entries plug into the existing structure without disturbing its visual rhythm.
RESOURCE:MANNHEIM is a research-driven initiative exploring water-sensitive urban design, circular water systems, and the idea of a "Zero Water City"
Project overview
RESOURCE:MANNHEIM is a research-driven initiative exploring water-sensitive urban design, circular water systems, and the idea of a "Zero Water City" — a model for how cities can reclaim, reuse, and integrate water into their everyday infrastructure. The project needed a digital home that could speak to researchers, urban planners, and institutions while still being accessible to a wider public. The brief was to translate dense ecological research into a clear, navigable platform without flattening its scientific weight.
Challenges
Turning research into something people will actually read. Water-sensitive urban design sits at the intersection of hydrology, planning, and public policy — most of its documentation lives in PDFs and conference papers. The site had to surface the same depth of information without the academic friction, so the structure had to do real work: short entry points for casual readers, deeper layers for specialists, and clear paths between them.
Avoiding the visual defaults of "eco" design. Sustainability projects often fall into a familiar palette of leafy greens, hand-drawn icons, and lifestyle photography that reads more like a wellness brand than a research initiative. RESOURCE:MANNHEIM needed to feel future-facing and technically credible — closer to the visual language of urban planning and systems thinking than environmentalism — without losing warmth or human scale.
Serving multiple audiences from a single surface. The site had to function as a project platform for the team, a reference for collaborating institutions, and a communication tool for residents and press — three audiences with very different reading habits. The information architecture, type hierarchy, and section pacing all had to absorb that range, letting each audience find what they need without forcing the others through it.
Results
he finished site reframes RESOURCE:MANNHEIM as a piece of public-facing infrastructure in its own right — modular layouts, map-influenced compositions, and data-driven graphic moments let complex water-cycle ideas land at a glance, while deeper sections give researchers and planners the detail they came for. Generous whitespace and a restrained typographic system carry the scientific tone without making the content feel cold. The system was designed to grow with the research: new case studies, team members, and news entries plug into the existing structure without disturbing its visual rhythm.