Lo—TEK Water
A Field Guide for TEKnology

This field guide explores ancestral water technologies across diverse ecosystems—from salty coastal reefs to freshwater wetlands—through Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and contemporary TEK-infused hybrid systems demonstrating how Indigenous systems foster resilience, adaptation, and regenerative design. Drawing on years of field research and collaboration with Indigenous experts, Lo–TEK Water reveals how communities around the world have developed water systems that work with natural cycles rather than against them. 💙

Structured to bridge past and future, the book is co-authored with Indigenous knowledge keepers to honor cultural integrity and ecological specificity.

With a foreword by Dr. Lyla June Johnson (Diné/Tsétsėhéstȧhese), this volume invites architects, planners, policymakers, and communities to embrace water as a co-creator and to cultivate cities and landscapes that thrive through ancestral resilience.

Lo—TEK Water invites readers to see water as a living, relational system—one that shapes culture, ecology, and design—and offers insights for creating adaptive, climate-conscious, and future-ready landscapes.

Publisher: @taschen
Author: @juliawatsondesign
Graphic Design, Art Direction: @pierawolf @w_e_studio and Stephanie Specht @spechtstudio
Illustrations: @linamueller_illustration
Editorial Coordination: Nora Dohrmann
Typefaces: Repro and Repro Mono by @abcdinamo, Martina Plantijn by @klim_type_foundry
Printed in Italy