Water is one of the fundamental resources for the survival of humanity and during the centuries in all the world it became integral part of building and garden architecture. For this reason, starting from general considerations of our countries of origin, we wanted to collect in this article some of the most representative examples of water treatment all over the world in three different fields: the outdoor spaces, the indoor spaces and the in-between spaces, both public and private, to mark the role of water in the designing of architectural process in the last 25 years and proposals for the future not so far.