The design approach started with a
comprehensive assessment of water
sources. Francis, who came to Santa
Fe on a fellowship while at Harvard’s
School of Design, is a student of ace-
quias—a water catchment system with
a history that spans hundreds of years,
continents and cultures. Thought to first
be used in the ultra-arid Arab world
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and brought to Spain by the Moors,
this technique of gravity-fed irrigation
canals was first used in the Southwest
in the early 1500s, building upon similar
techniques already developed by the
Native American Pueblo Tribe.
“In Northern New Mexico, particularly
here in Santa Fe, we get only about