Reservoir Field Station

The draw down zone of an upland reservoir, on ground that is shore for half the year.

Archive no.: 014
Program: Instrument room, bunk room, and a long bench for watching water behave
Area: 142 m²
Status: In design
Drawing set: 2 plates at 1:200

Site north
8° off sheet

PLINTH PRACTICE ARCHIVE · NO. 014 · SHEET 1 OF 2 Scale 1:200

FIG. 1 TERRAIN STUDY, PLATE NEGATIVE. THE VALLEY MEASURED AS A NET OF STATIONS.

PLINTH PRACTICE ARCHIVE · NO. 014 · SHEET 2 OF 2 Scale 1:200

FIG. 2 SECTION CC AT WINTER DATUM. THE LEGS ARE WET IN MARCH AND PROUD IN AUGUST.

The water authority measures this reservoir from a rowing boat, which is fine in June and character building in February. The station gives the hydrologists a dry instrument room, two bunks, and a south bench long enough to watch a storm arrive across the water.

The site is the difficult part, and the drawings say so. The building stands in the draw down zone, the belt of ground that the reservoir covers and uncovers as it breathes through the year. So the terrain study came first: the valley plotted as a net of survey stations, drawn white on black the way the level logger sees it, all wire and no weather. It is the only drawing in our archive with no paper in it, and it earns the exception.

The section returns to ink. Eight legs carry the room above the winter datum, drawn red where the section cuts them, with the high and low water lines ruled straight across the plate. The water is allowed to do whatever it likes below the red.