{"id":8652,"date":"2026-05-28T14:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/?p=8652"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:08:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:08:06","slug":"lo-tek-is-reframing-how-we-think-about-water-says-julia-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/lo-tek-is-reframing-how-we-think-about-water-says-julia-watson\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lo-TEK is reframing how we think about water” says Julia Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Julia<\/div>\n

Ancient building technologies should inform the way we manage today’s increased risk of flooding<\/a> and drought, author and designer Julia Watson<\/a> tells Dezeen in this interview<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Australian-born and trained as a landscape architect, Watson<\/a> has spent the last two decades investigating traditional techniques for mitigating infrastructure’s impact on the environment.<\/p>\n

She argues the pursuit has only become more relevant with the proliferation of urban environments and the rapid growth of AI-related infrastructure \u2013 happening against a backdrop of increasing dangers posed by climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Lo-Tek
Julia Watson advocates for looking to traditional technologies to help the world navigate the climate future<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“In the next 15 years, we’re going to see 165 cities the size of London pop up around the globe,” she told Dezeen. “We have a choice.”<\/p>\n

“[Our work] is about shifting the global conversation around urbanism by proving that there are different ways of doing this, and that it’s incredibly successful.”<\/p>\n

Watson is known for developing the concept of Lo-TEK \u2013 a play on “low-tech”, with TEK standing for “traditional ecological knowledge”.<\/p>\n

She believes an insistence on high-tech solutions to social and environmental problems leaves millennia of learning on the table and alternative paths or “plural futures” unexplored.<\/p>\n

“There are multiple avenues for technology and for the way that progress can be envisioned that come from a deeply centred, climate-focused and humanistic stance,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Lo-TEK is a regenerative and long-termist approach to thinking about technology, especially climate technology.”<\/p>\n

“Water is often spoken about as an existential threat”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lo-TEK was laid out as a design philosophy in Watson’s first book, Lo\u2013TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism<\/a>, published in 2019.<\/p>\n

The book attracted widespread interest, including from large architecture and engineering firms. Watson noted that she has worked on projects with globally relevant firms such as Buro Happold<\/a> and Gensler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her second book, Lo\u2013TEK: Water: A Field Guide for TEKnology<\/a>, released this year, looks specifically at how people have adapted over time to ocean and wetland environments.<\/p>\n

It highlights global design technologies from ancient fish weirs in the Philippines to artificial islands in the Solomon Islands and the remarkable ancient ice-storage methods of the Persians, with painstakingly gathered photography and diagnostic images.<\/p>\n