When addressing urban heat problems, climate- conscious urban design has been assuming that urban water bodies such as canals, ditches or ponds cool down their surroundings. Recent research shows that this is not necessarily the case and that urban water bodies may actually have a warming e ect, particularly during late summer season nights. There are however indications that water can have a cooling potential if brought together with the right shading, evaporation and ventilation strategies. Yet, it is not clear how this should be achieved. Knowledge on such spatial configurations should thus be developed and made available to design practice. This challenge is directly addressed by the “REALCOOL” project, a research aiming to define design prototypes showing the physical processes behind the e ective cooling potential of urban water bodies, that design professionals can take as conceptual design frameworks.