Designing Water's Future

contents

4

Addressing the World's Fresh Water Issues

by Lise Vejse Klint

6

Knowledge Obliges

by Jens Ditlev Lauritzen

8

What would YOU do?

(Think you can design your way out of this?)

by Margaret Catley-Carlson

12

Hope Made Visible

by Brian Collins

16

The Finalists:

18

Winner: Veggie Patch

by Jo Sczczepanska

24

Every Drop Counts

by Ulrik Svenningsen

28

Rescue Bottle

by Ceren Bagatar

32

Rethink Your Green

by Manuel Garcia, Eileen Hsu, Pouya Jahanshahi, Masato Nakada, Michelle Park & Maece Seirafi-Najar

36

Save the River Jadro

by Igor Carli

40 Vhembe Filter

by Martin Bolton

44

Honorable Mentions

46

Thank you

‘In any kind of an endeavor like this, what you're looking for is to give triumph a chance, and what that really means, in this case, is for creativity to defeat habit, to come up with solutions that aren't anticipated, and I hope that a number of them reach the kind of expectations we all have for them.’

‘What's so exciting is to see students addressing this in new ways that we in the communications world and the journalism world, in the design world, in the water engineering world never would have thought about.’

‘We are at a point of no awareness in many, many cases, particularly in the part of the world that has water. No awareness, perhaps no care ... we're not sure what we're looking at in that sense. If that needs to be cultivated then how does communication help with that?’

Ric Grefé

J. Carl Ganter

Porter anderson

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‘We've got to find ways to reframe what we see, because the way we see things actually is contradictory to the way we now need to behave.’

‘We need the designers to reach out and say AH! This is what the underlying issue is, this is how you reach out and touch the heartstrings and the behaviour of people.’

‘One of the challenges in the water area is the failure to understand the problem and the forms of the problem and the forms of solutions. And the key role of communications is precisely to tackle that.’

Brian Collins

Margaret Catley-Carlson

Dr. Peter H. Gleick

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‘first, we wanted to make students realize that they can use their profession as designers to make a real difference in the world by addressing serious challenges.’

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addressing the world’s fresh water issues : by lise vejse klint director of programs and events INDEX: Design to Improve Life

In May 2008, INDEX: and AIGA, the organi- zation of professional designers in the US, posed a challenge to students around the world, asking them to address the world’s fresh water crisis.

There were two main objectives for posing this challenge: first, we wanted to make students realize that they can use their pro- fession as designers to make a real difference in the world by addressing serious challenges, Secondly, we wanted to take the student finalists through a process that would help them understand how to create a business plan and approach potential investors. Two workshops were held: the first in Aspen, Colorado in March 2009, where the students refined their projects and developed business plans; and the second in Copenhagen, Denmark in August 2009 where they met with social investors, venture capitalists, and business leaders to seek implementation of their projects.

The subject of the water crisis originated from a discussion held during the January 2007 World Economic Forum, where Collins: Design and Circle of Blue presented water-related issues in first, second, and third worlds, effectively demonstrating that the fresh water crisis is truly a global issue.

In fact, water is the axis issue that intersects the world’s challenges, including health, pov- erty, and security, as well as climate, energy, immigration, and the environment. Even financial and commodities markets are affected. But the overall issue is complex and requires a 360-degree, multidimensional design approach that includes powerful, fact- based, relevant narratives, accessible information and coordinated channels for action.

Globally, the United Nations estimates that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in areas of water stress within the next 20 years, and that five million people – mostly children – die each year due to contaminated drinking water.

In the developing world, solutions to this cri- sis may mean drilling wells for children in a Ghanaian village or applying new or tradi- tional filtering technologies for families in Bangladesh. In the developed world, drought, climate changes, pollution, agricultural mis- use, and weak infrastructures beleaguer even the most advanced civilizations.

Over 700 students from 28 countries answered the challenge, and we would like to thank all of them for their great work and innovative ideas.

Enjoy!

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‘The ideas are there, the passion is there, the dedication is there, the innovation is there and now we must make sure that Business is also there to help carry these projects to fruition.’

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knowledge obliges : by jens ditlev lauritzen, chairman of the board jl-fondet

When the Student Challenge arrived in Copenhagen, it was to present the final selection of projects based on the theme of designing water’s future. To achieve this the students had to combine the learning from their education with innovation, dedication and a passion to participate in solving one of the world’s major challenges of this era.

This collaborative effort to make changes to today’s world is exactly what the Lauritzen Foundation is all about.

When the foundation was set up in 1945 on the back of a still thriving shipping business, innovation and the strive for excellence, combined with the fundamental humanistic approach were, and are still, the cornerstones in our way of thinking. So supporting the Student Challenge was an easy and natural decision for us.

More than two years have passed since INDEX: declared the challenge of improving the quantity and quality of clean water in a global context. Since then as many as 700 students from 28 different countries have spent countless time trying to come up with solutions to this problem.

No doubt there are many solutions, every one contributing their part, and that is also why all these projects might be considered winners as they may all have their part to play.

The projects selected to come to Copenhagen originated from around the globe namely Australia, USA, Turkey, Croatia, South Africa and Denmark, and after the two days here in Copenhagen one cannot other than be extremely impressed by the students passion and dedication for each and every project.

It took a lot of hard work by the students to get this far and still there are further battles ahead. Changing an idea into a viable commercial product is many times the biggest challenge, but here support, guidance and commitment from the global business community is vital, so let’s not forget that!

In both the developing, and developed world a movement is rising. In the past mainly politicians, researchers and specialist have spearheaded the debate, but these days a much broader scope of interested parties are voicing opinions as well as dedicating time and funds to come up with solutions, including INDEX: challenges such as this.

The message coming from the Student Challenge is that the ideas are there, the passion is there, the dedication is there, the innovation is there and now we must make sure that business is also there to help carry these projects to fruition.

We owe it to all who inhabit our world today, and all who will in the future.

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‘The problem is right now. We are already taking too much water out of 70 major river systems. Their deltas – and all the fish, plants, protection, and economic activities involved in deltas – are at serious risk.’

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what would you do? (Think you can design your way out of this?) : by margaret catley-carlson chair: World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water Security/ Global Water Partnership/ UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Water

What would YOU do if you woke up one morning and there was simply not enough water? Immediately, there would be no water for brushing your teeth, taking a shower, or making your morning coffee (53 gallons, or 150 liters, goes into a single latte) – or for washing the breakfast dishes. You probably wouldn’t be able to flush the toilet, which, by the way, takes about 35% of the cleaned, piped, maintained, alpha water that goes into North American households.

If there really were not enough water,and the shortage lasted for any length of time, some pretty important things would disap- pear. Food, for example. Every calorie you eat needs 1 liter – or 4+ cups of water to pro- duce it. If you look at it on a bigger scale, it takes a cubic meter (imagine a big cube a little more than 3 feet on each side, about a ton of water) to produce a little more than 2 pounds, a kilo, of wheat. Rice takes about twice that amount, and chicken up to 5 times as much. Beef? Almost double the amount for chicken, depending on how the cow is raised.

It’s hardly surprising, once you realize this, to imagine that food and agriculture are a pretty important use of water. They are.

Something like 75% of all water we humans take out of our lakes, rivers, groundwater, and soil goes to growing things.

It’s not just for our food – water is also needed for the fiber in our clothing, the food for the animals we eat, and for fuel. Then there is the matter of that hydro-powered light switch ...

If there really were insufficient water, even getting dressed in the morning would get eventually tougher: about 1,800 gallons of water – 6,800 liters – are needed to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular blue jeans. If food costs a lot in terms of water, you’ve probably figured out that manufactured stuff costs even more: an estimated 150+ cubic meters – 150 tons, or 39,090 gallons – is used to make a car, and each tire takes 518 gallons. For more facts like these, you can look it up on TreeHugger.

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‘What’s the issue? Why this doom and gloom and cautionary stuff?

Doesn’t it rain any more? Yes it does, and we’ve got about the same amount of water as the dinosaurs had when they roamed. But the combination of population growth, prosperity (we all want more of everything), and pollution (we ruin water) means that we are using more water than is replaced by rainfall in far too many parts of the world.’

Now imagine living in a country where water really IS already in short supply. If you were a girl in a rural area, you’d probably spend part of your week walking for water – it would certainly cut into your school week. Your younger brothers and sisters would be at real risk of waterborne diseases – 1 out of 5 children under the age of 5 dies from these.

good design? It can – and a group of talented young designers in this competition, sponsored by INDEX: and AIGA, submitted a multitude of smart solutions to vital aspects of the water management problem. Circle of Blue and COLLINS: of New York did backstopping. A group of us provided judge and jury service.

Turn the tables. Imagine living in a country where, instead of occasional regular rain, as much as 90% fell within a period of two weeks. You might be where storms and floods, some of them related to the fact that warmer temperatures cause clouds to hold more water, produce deluge after deluge, typhoon after typhoon. How would you cope?

Let’s run through a few.

What’s the issue? Why this doom and gloom and cautionary stuff? Doesn’t it rain any more? Yes it does, and we’ve got about the same amount of water as the dinosaurs had when they roamed. But the combination of population growth, prosperity (we all want more of everything), and pollution (we ruin water) means that we are using more water than is replaced by rainfall in far too many parts of the world. And temperature changes are changing rainfall and waterflow patterns.

Okay. That’s the range of issues, in a nutshell. Can design help? Especially really

What you can’t measure you don’t manage.

Cities often lose up to 45% of their water in municipal pipes. People aren’t even aware of how much water they use – or lose. Existing meters are expensive (and, it must be added, often resisted – water should be free, right?)

Answer - a great new meter that clamps right onto pipes and inexpensively provides information about water flow. With Every Drop Counts Ulrik Svenningsen of the Umea Institute of Design, Sweden, has come up with a great idea (we need this yesterday already!), and there are more in the book (and by the way, water should be free only if you don’t mind that the system won’t be maintained or run for very long or very well).

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If you’re not aware, you don’t care.

People won’t change their behavior unless they know they can make a difference.

Answer - put information on every drinking glass about how much water it takes.

While you’re at it, put a line around every bottle 1/3 of the way up to show how much petroleum it takes to bottle, manufacture, transport, reclaim, and recycle it. See how Igor Carli of the Arts Academy University of Split, Croatia, proposed to do this in Save the River Jadro.

You can die of thirst when drowning in water.

One of the major problems during a flood is getting safe drinking water to people.

Answer - when life saving devices are thrown to people, put in a drinking water component. Use new reverse osmosis techniques in flood (or any) refugee camp situation to create drinking water from brackish water. Check out Rescue Bottle, an idea from Ceren Bagatar of the Umea Institute of Design, Sweden. And look at the great idea of sWell from Alaina Prokopchuk of the University of Manitoba, Canada.

A solar-powered, mobile, inflatable filtration unit that filters gray floodwater into fresh potable water while doubling as a life raft in flood conditions.

management – stopping pollution, finding more water for agriculture, financing repairs to city pipes, etc. They need to believe they are supported in these tough decisions.

You need water for life, but dirty water kills.

Answers - flood the streets with T-shirt messages, put up statues and billboards showing water use, create zippy blogs and videos that will get passed around, Twitter, start a postcard campaign, write letters, set up twinning arrangements – and dozens more.

The single largest cause of death in major areas of the world is water-related diseases – not just cholera and diarrhea, but also malaria, trachoma (eyesight loss resulting from lack of face washing), and on and on.

Answer - Point-of-use water purification.

Simple systems can be designed that use a variety of barriers, for example, sand, seashells, membranes – some very low cost – to clean water to drinking standard. The history of these devices shows they work, but persistence and patience and long involvement are needed to introduce their use. Take a look at the Vhembe Filter designed by Martin Bolton of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

If you want political will to create change, better create political will.

Political leaders cannot on their own solve the difficult political problems of water

Maximize water use: more crop per drop, more jobs per drop.

We can’t give up eating (although adopting the veggie habit at least a couple of days per week would help a lot), so we must get more out of the water we use. Zero-till agriculture helps conserve moisture, and drip irrigation is a good part of the answer, BUT massive change in these directions is not supported by current incentives – taxes and subsidies – in agriculture.

Answers - our prize winner came up with an ingenious system for vegetable gardens that combines the protection of zero till with the water saving and channelling of some drip systems – and of course, uses recycled materials. Bravo for the VeggiePatch by Jo Szczepanska of Monash University, Australia.

It’s a beautiful world . . . and let’s keep it that way, but do it in ways that save water instead of wasting it. As much as 60% of the Los Angeles water supply goes to lawns and landscapes? Wow. Answers - many of the contestants and prize winners came up with entire cam- paigns to redesign urban gardens, boulevards, and cities with climate-appropriate plants – and job-creating services to make the transition and take care of them. ‘Bye bye lawns, hello happiness!’ Look at the imagination involved in Rethink Your Green, from Manuel Garcia, Eileen Hsu, Pouya Jahanshahi, Masato Nakada, Michelle Park, and Maece Seirafi-Najar of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, California, United States.

The problem is right now. We are already taking too much water out of 70 major river systems. Their deltas – and all the fish, plants, protection, and economic activities involved in deltas – are at serious risk.

We must design different futures. There are good things we can do. These designers have revealed part of the pathway toward a different water future.

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‘Designers work at human scale. For a designer, the obligation to make life better with workable, tangible solutions is immediate, personal, and direct.’

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hope made visible : by brian collins CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER Collins:

I. DANDELION SEEDS Sitting on my desk in New York are prototypes of two devices that make contaminated water safe to drink. For flood victims or peo- ple in a refugee camp, they are hope made visible. Bad water – water that contains in- dustrial pollutants or parasites or bacteria like E. coli – is responsible for half of all hospitalizations worldwide and five million deaths a year. One of the devices is business- like brushed metal with black plastic inserts, something like a commuter coffee cup. The other looks like a toy rocketship, standing on cheerful green plastic fins. Both can be made cheaply, by the millions, and delivered fast; a flood won’t wait for you to build a water-treatment facility. Neither one needs an owner’s manual to use. In both solutions, bad water goes in, good water comes out.

Simple. Not to mention needed, personal, fast and cheap-as-possible. When you have design attributes like that, ‘scalable’ takes care of itself.

What makes the prototypes on my desk un- usual is that they were produced by students.

The only spec was that their solution had to address the world’s water crisis in a meaningful way. It was up to the studentsto find their own problem to solve. Two teams, from Sweden and South Africa, chose de- contamination. Other finalists in our design challenge chose other problems. Getting citizens of Los Angeles to give up their titanically water-wasting habit of rich, thick, green lawns was one. It takes some nerve to get a whole city to change behavior.

But students, well … they’re up for it.

Will this project succeed? I certainly hope so. Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling used to say that the best way to have a good idea was to have lots of ideas. Industrial-scale innovation limits your options. The bigger the bet, the more conservative any organization is going to be. On the other hand, thousands of undirected, small-scale, fast ideas are almost certain to generate hundreds of practical solutions that weren’t there

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‘Within a single generation of designers, the cost of creating innovative solutions for small groups of people has become almost trivial. Now every designer can be a factory where the future is made.’

before. One of these ideas, I bet, I hope, will be the dandelion seeds of new futures for people.

II. INTO THE WILDERNESS Innovation doesn’t pop out at the end of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. Innovation is personal. It happens at the extreme margins of enterprise, where no one knows what the exact problems are because the maps are blank. Send a designer out there and she’ll come back with something nobody’s ever seen, a prototype that fulfills a need you didn’t even know existed.

You never really know what’s out there. That’s what’s wrong with hiring ‘problem solvers’ – a definition for designers as crippling as it is outdated. The great problems, the ones really worth solving, aren’t already on the agenda. Innovation is personal: if we are open, curious, and empathetic, the great problems will find us.

The water problem picked me in 2007, al- though I didn’t know it at the time. John Bielenberg had invited me to go down to Greensboro, Alabama, with his remarkable program Project M. Project M is like a self-

guided Outward Bound course for socially conscious designers. Every year Project M parachutes a team of young designers into a poor or challenged area and leaves them on their own to discover a problem that they can solve in a month or so. Nobody tells them what to do, or even what the problem is. They live with local families, look around, talk to people, and find something they can put their hand to that will do some good. They become problem ‘seekers'.

In Hale County we discovered that one family in four had no access to safe water.

Some of them were going to the local Texaco station with buckets because their water at home was full of foul waste from the county’s biggest employer, a catfish farm. A thousand families couldn’t get city water because they couldn’t afford the $425 hook-up for a water meter. Getting these people meters was what the designers decided to do. They created communications and a website to bring national attention – and money for meters – to Hale County. Go to buyameter.org and you can see how the project’s doing.

They’ve connected over 100 families so far. That’s not a bad month’s work for a brand new design team.

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After my experience in Alabama, I started seeing water crises everywhere. Half of China’s cities have water shortages and 700 million people drink contaminated water every day. The World Bank calculates that 30 million people will have to relocate by 2020, 30 million ‘water refugees.’ In Mexico’s Tehuacán Valley, where humans first domesticated corn, there is no longer enough water to grow corn. In rural Africa, one woman in five spends two hours a day fetching water on foot from wells miles away. There are Hale Counties everywhere.

III. INSPIRED IN DAVOS Former NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger and I shared some of these water stories at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Four months in orbit aboard Mir, looking down at Earth’s shrinking river systems had made Jerry a water hawk, too. Water wasn’t at the very top of the agenda in Davos, but it quickly emerged as the axis that connects many of the other problems that were. By itself, the lack of safe water unleashes all four horsemen of the apocalypse: death, famine, pestilence, and war. In fact, the U.N. predicted outright conflict over water in the next five years.

‘Innovation doesn’t pop out at the end of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. Innovation is personal. It happens at the extreme margins of enterprise, where no one knows what the exact problems are because the maps are blank.

Send a designer out there and she’ll come back with something nobody’s ever seen, a prototype that fulfills a need you didn’t even know existed.’

So Jerry and I invited a group of global thought leaders to explore this issue in a quickly organized work session at Davos.

They already knew the global to-do list was pretty full. We needed to come up with our own resources to put more effort against these water crises. Design students are one of Earth’s abundant resources, so we set out to engage them. Working in partnership with INDEX: Design to Improve Life, the AIGA and the organization Circle of Blue, we decided to invite 10,000 of them from around the world to participate in The Aspen Design Challenge: Designing Water’s Future.

These students would be our dandelion seeds. As it turned out, more than 700 students from 28 countries provided 225 water solutions that weren’t there before.

The best of them will be shaped for venture capital and presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Now that these prototypes exist, it’s time to work with our gifted PowerPoint friends to do what they can to unleash the mighty wheels of enterprise that replicate and distribute innovations at scale. Because we need to get solutions like these out and into the world. And fast.

IV. AN ARCHITECTURE OF PARTICIPATION Designers work at human scale. For a design- er, the obligation to make life better with workable, tangible solutions is immediate, personal, and direct. And while institutions are very good at making lots more of something that already exists, they are not as good at inventing the new.

Institutional action and big money are blunt instruments that can do as much damage as good by virtue of scale alone. Heroic water management projects – like dams – rarely benefit the people they’re meant to help, because the local communities get moved somewhere else and the big returns usually go somewhere else, too. Before it imploded, Enron was going to solve the world’s water problems by creating trading desks. They were seeking to monetize hydration.

Efforts like Project M and the INDEX: | AIGA Aspen Challenge are creating an architecture of participation outside of these kinds of silos.

Over the last nine years, Project M alumni have emerged as one of an increasing number of influential networks of designers that want to make a tangible difference in people’s

lives. As a discipline, design is now transcending the traditional ‘service’ roles of the institutions that employ us. As designers, how should we best use our new-found powers and influence?

The first of something used to be hideously expensive; there had to be a mass market to earn back development costs. This is still true for new drugs and airliners, but not for most of the other things people use in their daily lives. In short, rapid prototyping systems have transformed the designer’s role.

We can move out of the Concept business and into the real-world Solutions business faster than we had ever imagined.

Within a single generation of designers, the cost of creating innovative solutions for small groups of people has become almost trivial. Now every designer can be a factory where the future is made.

What we can see, we can solve.

And we’ll all see a lot more far beyond our office walls.

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WInner: veggiepatch

save the river jadro

vhembe filter

Jo Szczepanska : Monash University Australia

Igor Carli : the Arts Academy University of Split Croatia

martin bolton : University of Johannesburg South Africa

The finalists 18 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

rethink your green

every drop counts

rescue bottle

Manuel Garcia Eileen Hsu Pouya Jahanshahi Masato Nakada Michelle Park Maece Seirafi-Najar : California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) California, United States

Ulrik Svenningsen : UmeA Institute of Design Sweden

ceren bagatar : UmeA Institute of Design Sweden

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‘... You can’t turn on the TV without seeing water warnings or stop at traffic lights without seeing the dam levels in big neon light.

The reality has very much set in here; we just don’t have enough water to waste.’

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veggiepatch : design: jo szczepanska, monash university, australia

project advisor: selby coxon

Larger Cities, Greater Urban Populations

too much waste. It is estimated that cities are responsible for 75% of global energy consumption and 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Urban ecological footprints are destroying the habitat of many species, but this impact stretches far beyond physical boundaries.

At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is involved in an unparalleled experiment: we are turning ourselves into an urban species. We are building mega cities and metropolises the likes of which have never been seen before; and these places are becoming our main habitat.

Urban growth is changing the face of the earth and the condition of humanity.

As cities develop, many people from rural areas choose to migrate into cities, creating increased poverty within metropolitan areas; poverty is now growing faster in urban than in rural areas. Currently, one billion people live in urban slums, which are typically over- crowded, polluted, and dangerous, and lack basic services such as clean water and sanitation.

It is known that cities nowadays are using too many natural resources and produce

Disconnection Between People and Their Food In the past, there has been a direct link between people and their food; families grew their own food at home or in community plots or gardens, and in many cases, what they grew in their gardens supplemented their diet, giving them and their community easy access to affordable, fresh, healthy food.

Fruits and vegetables are an important com- ponent of a healthy diet and, if consumed daily in sufficient amounts, could help prevent major diseases such as CVDs and certain cancers. According to the World Health Re- port in 2002, low fruit and vegetable intake

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i WANT aN easIER way to garden

is estimated to cause about 31% of ischemic heart disease and 11% of strokes worldwide.

Overall, it is estimated that up to 2.7 million lives could be saved each year if fruit and vegetable consumption was sufficiently increased. However, in the current economic climate, fresh produce may become inaccessible financially, as food prices are expected to increase.

However today there are quite a few disruptions in the food supply chains. Often food is factory farmed in remote locations, picked prior to ripening, frozen and transported many kilometres to a supermarket to be sold.

Local knowledge on food cultivation, and even cooking with raw ingredients, is something that has been lost in many cities. For many children who have grown up on pre- packaged, heat-and-serve meals, the impor- tance of fresh food has not been nurtured.

Recently, though the recognition of the em- bodied energy surrounding food transportation and packaging, as well as an increased preference for organic, non-genetically modified food, dig for victory, or growing food at home has made a return.

Nature in Cities/ Urban Agriculture The rapid development of housing and business districts within cities over the

past century has often come at the expense of nature. With less space being dedicated to nature in cities, residents must often become resourceful in creating gardens.

Currently, 800 million people are involved in urban agriculture worldwide and contribute to feeding urban residents. Among its many benefits, urban agriculture helps to reduce a city’s ecological footprint even as the city continues to expand. It also increases local biodiversity and encourages the development of new ecosystems, and, microclimates. Cou- pled with an improvement in urban envi- ronment is the overall improvement of the urban population; a more livable city is a healthier city.

Not only does urban agriculture improve access to fresh produce and provides a poten- tial income stream for people in developing countries, but studies in developed countries have found that having access to greenery in a city considerably reduces stress; this phenomena is often tagged as to as vitamin G. Wasteful Use of Water in Agriculture Throughout the world, irrigation is a fundamental use of water, allowing people to produce food and sustain communities. In most countries, irrigated agriculture accounts for most freshwater use (as much as 70-80%);

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i WANT CHEAP, NUTRITIOUS FOOD FOR MY FAMILY

it certainly accounts for far more than drinking water and domestic consumption. By 2020, water use is expected to increase by 40%, and 17% more water will be required for food production in order to meet the needs of the growing population.

High Food Waste Generation and Composting Because of their high population density, cities generate a lot of waste, which is often food and plant matter that could easily be composted rather than sent to a landfill.

On average, food waste is more than 50% water, which is released during decompo- sition. Also, organic material frequently decomposes without air in landfills, and produces methane, a gas that has been shown to contribute to climate change.

In Australia for example, 24 million tons of waste are generated annually, 40% of which is compostable. Australia is also a prime example of wasteful consumerism; currently it is 2nd in the world for waste generation. It is estimated that Australians throw out $5.3 billion worth of food, and it costs the country $4 billion to take dispose of that waste. In many countries, recycling programs are being implemented in an effort to reduce waste going to landfills; not many are targeting compostable waste at this stage.

You’ll Use You’ll You’ll Use You’ll Use Use

Less Energy Less EnergyLess Energy Energy Less Less Packaging Less Packaging Less Packaging Less Packaging Less Water Less Water Less Water Less Water No Chemicals NoNoChemicals No Chemicals Chemicals Recycled Materials Recycled Materials Recycled MaterialsMaterials Recycled Worms Worms Worms Worms

You’ll get getget You’ll You’ll get You’llYou’ll Use Fresh, cheap, tasty food

Fresh,Fresh, cheap, tasty food cheap, tasty food Fresh, cheap, tasty food No chemical contamination NoLess chemical contamination No chemical contamination Energy No chemical contamination Gentle, healthy exercise Less Packaging Gentle, healthy exercise Gentle, healthy exercise Gentle, healthy exercise Less Water A closed food wastefood cycle A closed waste cycle A closed A closed food waste cycle food waste cycle No Chemicals Job satisfaction Job satisfaction Job satisfaction Job satisfaction Recycled Materials Environmental Environmental Environmental Environmental Worms peace of mind peace ofpeace mind of mindof mind peace

1 1

5 2 4 5 4 3 3

2

1

2

VeggiePatch (Perspective View)

Vermicomposting

Planting

1 Drip irrigation.

2 Planting and composting pockets

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

Tie off base using straps.

Make a bedding using newspaper or coir.

Put in your worms + a bit of soil.

Feed your worms. (start small) Cover your compost.

Read your seed disk.

Tie off pocket at appropriate depth.

Put in your soil and disk.

Cover disk with 2-3 cm of soil Adjust irrigation to suit plant + water.

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You’ll

Fresh, cheap No chemica Gentle, heal A closed foo Job satisfact Environmen peace of min

VeggiePatch Provides Edible Landscapes for Urban Spaces Using recycled materials, irrigation technology, and permaculture principles allows climate-concerned city dwellers to experi- ence the pleasure of cultivating food in space-restricted urban areas while eliminating food miles, packaging, processing, and waste water used in flood irrigation at the beginning of the food production cycle.

Issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, the need for landfills, and food waste transportation are addressed by VeggiePatch, which allows for a plug-and-play approach to food cultivation and composting. Being adaptable to its surroundings and capable of watering itself, VeggiePatch aids urban residents in reducing their eco-footprints.

Irrigation Using drip irrigation that can be adjusted and fitted close to a plant's root structure, VeggiePatch is water-efficient and economical, using fresh water or filtered grey water to irrigate plants. The slow rate of water flow allows all of the water to be absorbed by the soil, and, in a well-tuned system, little water is wasted via excessive water use and evaporation. This irrigation method is compression molded into the top sheet, making it functional at any length and easily recyclable.

Once plants are established, watering for 5 to 15 minutes, twice per week should be enough to maintain them. Adjustable drip emitters generally have a range of 0 - 30 liters per hour. In a meter-long VeggiePatch with 15 cultivation pockets, watering at a rate of 5 liters per hectare for 10 minutes will use a total of 12.5 liters of water, which is more than sufficient for most vegetables.

This type of irrigation uses much less

water than the flood irrigation that is most commonly practiced in Australian largescale agriculture. This is equivalent to a leak- ing tap that drips once per second, which will waste 30 liters of fresh water daily. Older toilets use up to 18 liters of water for each flush, with the average single flush toilet using 12 liters of water.

Vermicomposting VeggiePatch has the capability to continuous- ly vermicompost food waste within each of its pockets, closing the loop in the food cycle.

Food and garden waste in landfills produce methane gas. Methane is a 23 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO 2. Sending green waste to landfill is also a waste of good nutrients that could go on the garden or plants to help them grow. Food that is sent to landfills also releases a lot of water that, when combined with rainwater, can pollute neighboring ground water, lakes, and rivers.

Materials Using post-consumer waste such as tyre crumb fabric for its construction, VeggiePatch provides a new application for recycled materials. The materials that were selected not only support the products functionality and economic viability, but also final disassembly and recycling. FSC-certified plywood has been specified for the VeggiePatch base, mak- ing it strong and relatively lightweight. Spec- ifying FSC timber means that VeggiePatch supports the growth of responsible forest management worldwide.

Tyre crumb fabric will make the cultivation sheet predominantly of waste; the use of recycled rubber makes it water-proof and weather resistant, flexible, durable, insulated, non-stick, and antibacterial. It also allows the irrigation to be sewn on,

24 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

so that it can be fully recycled at the end of its lifecycle.

Sustainability Under current plans, VeggiePatch aims to be produced locally at its point of sale. This will allow VeggiePatches to adapt to their environment and make use of the resources that are widely available for manufacture.

It will also be able to sustain the local community, support ethical manufacturers in the region, and engage the public.

Feasibility VeggiePatch has multiple applications, such as use by climate-conscious residents in developed countries and boosting food production and the economies of poorer ones.

This product addresses the issue of climate change on a grassroots level, yet has the potential to be implemented on a larger scale. VeggiePatch is a holistic product that addresses environmental issues, while sup- porting its community, and other sustainable products and materials. As the world becomes more urban, we will need to adapt our lifestyles to be more self-sufficient, and to use the nutrients that are accumulating in the waste that we generate. We will have to take advantage of the space that is available to us and incorporate more greenery. Urban agriculture, which was founded on subsist- ence purposes, has many additional social, economic, and ecological benefits. Urban agriculture makes an important contribution to cities of the future; VeggiePatch is a part of that contribution.

Case Study Mumbai, India

Case Study Victoria, Australia

Case Study Dig For Victory, Britain

According to a 2004 estimate, the pop- ulation of metropolitan Mumbai was approximately 17 million; every year, the city receives over 250,000 rural- to-urban migrants. Mumbai could be the world’s most populous city by 2020, with an estimated 28.5 million people.

On average, Australia gets an average of 472 mm of rain a year, which is why 70% of the continent is classified as desert.

Presently, 65% of the freshwater used in Australia is used in agriculture; of this, 91% is used to irrigate crops. The most common form of irrigation in Australia is flood irrigation, which is the least efficient form of irrigating crops because the process entails oversaturating crops with water that is mostly lost to evaporation.

During World War II, governments around the world introduced similar campaigns to the British ‘Dig for victory’ campaign that called for every man and woman in Britain to keep an allotment of water. ‘Dig for victory’ was a widely successful campaign, exceeding all expectations. Between 1939 and 1945, food imports were halved and the acreage of British land used for food production increased by 80%. It was estimated that over 1.4 million people had allotments by 1945.

This not only connected people with their food, but made them more self-sufficient.

‘With this sizeable number of people, resources are getting increasingly scarce.

Buildings are getting taller, with no care for where water and space, children’s playgrounds and parking areas will come from.’

– Gopalkrishnan, P.

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‘in 99% of Swedish apartment buildings the water is measured and debited for the whole building - not for the individual household. This means that people have no individual incentive to save water.’ 26 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

every drop counts : design: Ulrik Svenningsen, Umea Institute of Design Sweden

project advisor: Peter Avondoglio

Changing behavior In Sweden

∙∙ Easy cost effective installing ∙∙ Detached display shows how much water you use where you use it, and tells the tap water temperature.

Every Drop Counts is a proposal on how to solve a known and acknowledged problem that until now has been too expensive to solve.

Sweden has plenty of clean freshwater so the Swedes use a lot of it, my idea was to compel to a change of behavior where water is still abundant, because if it can work here it can work anywhere.

Imagine all European cities cutting their water consumption down by 20 percent within a few years. The Every Drop Counts meter is aiming for just that. Based on cost allocation technology that has proven to save between 20 and 30 percent of heating consumption where applied, combined with a known method for detecting water leakages this new concept for water metering has a host of advantages over traditional water meters. ∙∙

∙∙ ∙∙

Clamps onto the pipe (does not interfere with the system) Automatic relay of data Inexpensive components (low cost per unit)

I was looking into water consumption in Swedish households and found out that in 99% of Swedish apartment buildings the water is measured and debited for the whole building - not for the individual household.

This means that more than half Sweden’s population who live in apartment buildings have no individual incentive to save water.

If you are conscious about your water con- sumption there is no way of telling how much water you actually use and if you make an effort to save water you end up paying the same as your neighbour who spends hours in the shower.

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2 1

3 4 5

6

Components 1 Microphone 2 Room thermometer 3 Transmitter 4 controller 5 Battery 6 Pipe thermometer

Water flow changes the sound and temperature of the pipe, this can be measured with inexpensive components from the outside of the pipe. This makes both equipment and installation affordable enough to be implemented in ordinary households.

With this system all users know how much they use, and pay only for what they get.

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A simple display can be assigned to the individual meters locally, so the water consumption can be quantified where and when it happens for instance in the shower.

For more detailed information a user account gives access to statistics about the household’s water consumption, making it easy to see where water could be saved.

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‘I had always been worried about global warming, water consumption and desertification problems, but I had never thought about water crisis in an emergency situation such as a flood condition.’ 30 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

rescue bottle : design: ceren bagatar, UmeĂĽ institute of design, sweden

project advisor: peter avondoglio

The increase in world population, industrialization and urbanization bring out serious environmental problems. Beside the scarcity of fresh water, the world is facing a climate change problem and every year it struggles with serious floods and hurricanes.

concentrated dioralyte mixed with basic nutrients. The final mixed drink is basically a mixture of filtered pure water and dioralyte mixed with essential nutrients that is needed by flood-hit kids and adults in order to recover their lost of body fluids and treat diarrhoea.

The flood condition is a different kind of problem area where there is plenty of water sources, but all is contaminated and haz- ardous for human consumption. Depending on its location, floodwater might mix with chemicals, toxins, septic and animal carcasses. It also mixes with and contaminates surface water, ground water and drinking water supplies. Therefore flood-hit people in developing countries are under risk of serious diarrheal diseases and they need immediate safe water assistance.

The rescue bottle consists of a reverse os- mosis membrane, a concentrated solution refill, a 500 ml capacity empty liquid con- tainer and a mouthpiece. The reverse osmosis membrane filters brackish water into pure water using the driving force of highly concentrated dioralyte solution. The concentrated solution refill is filled in with a highly concentrated solution of dioralyte mixed with basic nutrients that is enough to get 15 times of 500ml of mixed drink. The empty container is filled in with the mixture of pure water and dioralyte and used with a mouthpiece that enables multi-user usage in relief camps and other community areas.

Rescue bottles can be used in flood relief camps, or given away to communities with multiple mouthpieces with a cost of between $20–50. They can also be stationed in the floodwater in areas where complete disaster management services cannot reach.

Rescue Bottle is designed to be used by flood-hit people to obtain a fast emergency rescue drink under flood conditions. It is a water purifier and dioralyte supplier that is used to replace body fluids lost in emergency situations under flood conditions. It filters contaminated water through a reverse osmosis membrane using the osmotic pres- sure of a draw solution, which is made of

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Rescue bottle can be dipped in any kind of water.

After 40 minutes, the drum will be filled in with rescue drink.

Each user will have his own mouthpiece.

3 2 1

One bottle will provide 16 batches of rescue drink.

Components

1 Empty drum – to be filled with water, electrolytes and nutrients.

2 Hyper filtration membrane – filters contaminated water.

3 Concentrated solution – enough to supplement 16 batches of rescue drink.

In flood disasters there is an urgent need of clean water supply that should be obtained easily. Rescue Bottle filters water with the help of a highly concentrated pre- made solution which draws water molecules through a hyper filtration membrane from contaminated water into the bottle. During this process it doesn’t require uniquely any source of energy or physical force. At the end of the filtering process, it provides a rescue drink that is a mixture of pure water, electrolytes and nutrition. This rescue drink will mitigate diarrhoea and other water borne-diseases in flood-hit areas.

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Flood conditions create different kinds of crises, because there is plenty of water sources, but all of them are hazardous to human beings.

Rescue Bottles will be distributed to floodhit areas in early stages of flood disasters, until food and water aids arrive in the area.

They can also be stationed in flood water.

Rescue Bottles will be pre-positioned in flood prone areas. Local people in these areas will be instructed on how to use the rescue bottles.

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‘California is facing an unprecedented water crisis. The combination of drought, court ordered water restrictions, global warming, and an increasing population has placed a major strain on the existing infrastructure.’ 34 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

rethink your green : design: Manuel Garcia, Eileen Hsu, Pouya Jahanshahi, Masato Nakada, Michelle Park & Maece Seirafi-Najar, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, California, United States

project advisors: Paula Daniels, Jane Galbraith, Stephanie Pincetl, Joseph Prichard & Louise Sandhaus

‘California is facing an unprecedented water crisis. The combination of drought, court ordered water restrictions, global warming, and an increasing population has placed a major strain on the existing infrastructure.

We need to prepare now for the future.’

– Senator Diane Feinstein

drought-resistant California native gardens or other sustainable alternatives.

Los Angeles is a dry Mediterranean-type climate. Local water sources alone are not sufficient to provide for the enormous popu- lation of the region. Much of the water we depend upon comes to our city from great distances and is drawn from rapidly dwindling sources. In light of projected population growth it is crucial that Angelenos learn to curb wasteful water consumption habits before it is too late.

The largest source of urban water consumption in Los Angeles is outdoor use. By some estimates as much as 60 percent of our total water usage goes towards landscaping and other similar purposes. This figure could be dramatically reduced if Los Angeles home owners could be convinced to replace their water-hungry ‘traditional lawns’ with

Our research reveals that homeowners in Los Angeles have a variety of strongly held reasons for maintaining a traditional lawn.

Some believe that they are making an environmentally friendly ‘green’ decision by keeping their lawn. Some are concerned with saving green, and believe that replacing their lawn would be too expensive, others simply are accustomed to the lush greenness of a manicured lawn. Our campaign asks Angelenos to rethink their notion of ‘green’ by showing the hidden costs of a traditional lawn (environmental, financial and aesthetic) and the benefits of California native gardens and other sustainable alternatives.

Moreover our campaign will empower the public to take action by providing in-depth information and step by step instructions about how to make the switch to more sustainable and water-wise yards. In contrast to the sometimes hectoring manner of other PSAs our campaign’s voice will be positive and upbeat.

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MID 20TH CENTURY Television builds an image of the ideal American family.

21ST CENTURY The American lawn has become a staple of American life. Embedded into our image of the American dream.

19TH CENTURY Americans move out West to a lush new landscape of brown and gold.

18TH CENTURY

EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Lawns are imported from Britain as a luxury for the well-off.

Hollywood dramatizes the beauty of the American Southwest.

the Problem

HAS DROPPED TO

46%

Capacity

the Challenge

LAKE MEAD

40%

Los Angeles’ rapidly depleting water resources are being wasted on grass lawns inappropriate for the region’s mediterranean climate.

To convince Los Angeles homeowners to replace their water-thirsty traditional lawns with sustainable alternatives.

60%

the Solution

INDOOR

The Rethink Your Green campaign asks Angelenos to rethink their notion of ‘green’ by building awareness, inviting change, empowering action through building communties, and then celebrating new eco-friendly behavior.

OUTDOOR

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The Rethink Your Green campaign will make lawn owners aware of the hidden costs of lawns while introducing them to amazing sustainable alternatives.

A system of highly visual, concise and seductive media components will exist in public hubs and digital spaces. Our four- phase campaign utilizes posters & billboards, print media, as well as web and mobile device applications.

Once our core audience has been exposed to the problem we will conduct neighborhood demonstrations, workshops and contests to celebrate the positive change they have made.

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‘By putting powerful messages on glasses, people will by drinking the water, find themselves in the situation where they have a direct relation to the water and a direct connection to the problems associated with it.’ 38 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

save the river jadro : design: igor Carli, Arts Academy University of Split, Croatia

project advisor: Tomislav LerotiĆ

Aim

hazardous waste; the weak, aging plumbing system loses huge amounts of freshwater.

In the Split-Dalmatian county, landfill sites are located in the Karst area, which is very porous and allows water to leak from the dump into the subterranean freshwater.

The interest of investors, not environmental factors, are taken into account when deciding upon the location of landfill sites. This brings up another problem concerning fresh- water: concessions over freshwater sources.

The goal of this project is to raise citizens’ awareness about the problem of freshwater.

We want the glass of water to become the in- formation carrier to the consumer, by which we emphasize various issues related to water and compare them to possible problems in the near future. The project can be expanded to the global community, and is very flexible because it can be adapted for other problems that are related to fresh water.

Opportunity Despite the fact that Croatia has one of the richest supplies of freshwater on earth, low awareness and irresponsible usage of this rich supply can create very big changes in the future. The Croatian population does not use freshwater rationally; households use triple the amount of water than is necessary (washing dishes, flushing toilets, leaking taps, etc). Freshwater is used to clean streets, cars, etc.; various kinds of hazardous waste (engine oil, used batteries, car tires, etc.) are thrown out into the environment, and this hazardous waste irreversibly contaminates the water supply. Croatia does not have a systematic organization to collect

Freshwater does not belong to the entire pop- ulation; rather, it belongs to the individual.

Following technological processing, this water lacks certain important substances, is packaged so that is attractive to customers, and even the packaging has a harmful effect on our environment. In the future, we can expect an increase in the price of water and we will pay dearly for water that we are using for free today.

Solution Our main goal is to increase awareness of the problems that we are facing regarding freshwater, and we want to make this possible in small steps that will be easy and accessible for everyone. The first step is

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people about the problems with freshwater.

Informing the public and making them aware of the freshwater problem will contribute to a gradual change in habits of accessing water and in turn, will strengthen the understanding that our future depends on the future of freshwater.

taurants, as well as other venues. They can also be distributed easily, which is why this project can be implemented on a global scale. Messages printed on the glasses can be transferred to other mediums, such as coasters, napkins, etc. The uniqueness of this project is that the global problem will be dealt with on a local scale and, in the near future, will foster a global solution for a global problem.

prevention: drinking glasses will be the car- riers, with different messages about prob- lems linked to freshwater printed on them.

We have chosen glasses as the most widespread medium that connects the public to the drinking water. At first, they would be used in coffee shops and restaurants in the Split-Dalmatian County, and later, depending on the success rate, on a global scale. By putting powerful messages on the glasses, people will buy the drinking water, and will find themselves in the situation where they have a direct relation to the water as well as to the problems associated with that water. By drinking the water, people will find out exactly how much they depend on water for life; confronted with the problem in this way, the consumer becomes interested in further information, which he can find through the websites that are printed on the glass. Even though we live in the technology age, many people still do not use the Internet, so in addition to the website addresses (depending on material possibilities) we would choose other media (e.g., newspapers, television commercials, leaflets, billboard posters, etc) to inform

The project is implemented through glasses, which are the most common medium between people and water. It is precisely these glasses that make the project so sim- ple because the messages on them are easi- ly applicable and require minimum financial investment. Also, these messages can be adapted to different issues and can be written in any language. Besides the messages on the glasses, there are website addresses for anyone who wants to become more aware of the situation. We want the glasses to encourage communication between people so that the topic becomes included in all aspects of our lives. The flexibility of this project lies in the fact that glasses can be implemented in all coffee shops and res-

Blue Gold

The problem

The Idea

Croatia has close to 45 billion cubic meters of renewable freshwater, which converts to 9500 cubic meters per capita. According to these numbers, Croatia is ranked third in Europe with regards to renewable freshwater supply.

Wasting fresh water occurs from washing cars, cleaning roads, leaking water from faulty taps in households, in addition, freshwater becomes polluted by throwing oil in water, batteries, and throwing debris, and other hazardous material into nature.

Using glasses of tap water as the widespread medium to represent the relationship between man and the water he consumes.

Competitive Originality

40 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

Feasibility This project can succeed because it does not require a great deal of financial investment or staff. Glasses present an excellent and specific medium of carrying messages about the protection of freshwater, and they can reach the target audience, which is people of all ages, regardless of their fi- nancial status. Glasses are distributed easily, and so the program can be applied on a global level. It is also flexible: the glasses can be sold at any store or venue, and the messages can be adapted for other media, such as coasters, napkins, etc.

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‘These people have real problems at hand which may be solved with ingenuity, hard work, and application of knowledge. My Vhembe Filter design may prove to supply cleaner water to these households, in turn bettering their living standards.’ 42 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

vhembe filter : design: martin bolton, university of johannesburg, south africa

The Challenge This project aimed to develop an improved low-cost ceramic water filter for use within rural households of the Vhembe region of South Africa through the field testing of an existing filter design so as to provide potable water rather than contaminated water to households.

Frame the Context Social - It is the democratic right of all South African citizens that they are provided with efficient, cost-effective and sustainable water resources. Many South African urban and semi-urban households have been sup- plied with safe water. However, although safe water supplies have been introduced into rural areas in various forms, such as communal taps and borehole pumps, a constant problem is created because when the water is consumed within the households, its health-related microbial quality has deteriorated to the point where it is ‘unsafe' to drink. This contamination occurs in the plastic vessels used to transport and store the water in the household cooking area until used. This improved low-cost ceramic water filter provides a viable solution.

Cultural - South Africa consists of many different people groups, with people from these groups surviving in drastically differ- ent circumstances. This is divided between urban, semi-urban, and rural areas. The rural areas consist of houses distributed rela- tively sparsely over the landscapes. These houses are constructed out of bricks, stones, mud or concrete (many varying construction methods are utilized). Some households have electrical connections, with the remaining households having to work off battery power or fire.

The majority of the households cook on paraffin or coal stoves, or on open fires. The water which the rural people consume is col- lected at community water points scattered relatively evenly throughout the rural areas.

It is transported and stored in rural house- holds in 20/25l containers prior to consump- tion. A fair amount of the rural people are subsistence farmers, growing their own crops within their property boundaries or at com- munity farmlands.

Economic - South Africa consists of a Dual Economy. This is a combination of 1st world and developing world aspects. Middle to high income citizens are mainly urbanized,

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‘... although safe water supplies have been introduced into rural areas in various forms, such as communal taps and borehole pumps, a constant problem is created because when the water is consumed within the households, its health-related microbial quality has deteriorated to the point where it is ‘unsafe' to drink.’

with low income citizens mainly residing in semi-urban and rural areas.

Political - The current government’s policy is focused on service delivery to the marginalized population. Housing, water and electricity provision is their priority.

In addition the South African constitution states that everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water. This improved low-cost ceramic water filter may be suitable as a government intervention into the rural households.

Environmental, Sustainability By considering aspects of sustainability in the designing of the filter components, the filter can be considered as beneficial to include within the rural environment.

Furthermore, even after use, the filter components can be used to satisfy different uses within the rural households. High quality production and quality control measures will ensure a predictable product quality, manufactured from a high grade, long lasting material able to meet the demands of the rural areas (hard wearing, UV resistant plastics for example). Ethical production processes and material choices will be a considered to minimise the nega- tive aspects of mass production and distribution on the environment.

Competitive Originality - There are many other low-cost household water treatment systems available, however, the competitive originality of the Vhembe filter lies in the fact that it was developed with the intended users of the filter. Furthermore, it has been developed from an existing lowcost water treatment system which has prov- en to be effective within the local rural areas.

If the living conditions in other rural areas are similar, the filter could be better suited than other filter alternatives for use in other rural areas in Southern Africa, the African continent, and possibly other developing nations around the world.

Feasability - Utilising mass production, ability to manufacture high unit quantities, the unit cost of the Vhembe Filter was cal- culated and costs roughly € 14.04* to manufacture. The price per filter unit comes to € 20.16* including a 40% mark-up over the manufacturing costs. This mark-up takes into consideration overhead costs and profit.

According to manufacturer specifications of the existing filter element, it is able to supply an adequate amount of drinking water for an entire family for a duration of 3 years, before replacement is necessary (previous research however, shows that filter elements are still effective for durations exceeding the 3 year mark). Therefore, a filter costing € 20.16*

44 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

is able to supply clean drinking water for roughly € 0.02 per day* (filter price over three year period). The valuebenefit of the new filter design should account for the additional costs compared to purchasing and importing an existing design. This additional cost however, compared to the existing filter design equates to 1/5th of a Euro Cent. Although the improved filter is more costly to manufacture, the difference miniscule, as well as pursuing local production eliminates the need for shipping or freighting products from abroad.The outcome is a low cost filter, suited to the users specific needs, at a cost low enough to justify mass manufacture and distribution.

Solution Explanation Presented using CAD renderings, a half-size ‘grown’ prototype and a full size fabricated working model. The final design comprises three main plastic components, a bent wire hanging handle, the existing Filtron/Potpaz ceramic filter element, and the existing Filtron plastic spigot. The three main plastic components are all injection moulded using a food grade Polypropylene plastic and are as follows: receptacle, stand, and lid. *calculated at 1EUR = ZAR 11.34, (09 July 2009)

1

1 2 3

3 5

6 2

stackable components Filter components are stackable, suiting them to storage within rural stores, hardware stores, as well as effective stockpiling and shipping.

4

base 1 Internal ribs & outer sleeve

supports receptacle.

2 Legs flair from center, providing adequate stability. Ă˜450 mm 3 Three legs stand rests evenly on the ground, always stable.

Improved Filter: Components 1 Receptacle 2 Ceramic Filter Element 3 Stand 4 Hanging Handle 5 Lid 6 Spigot

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‘Innovation is personal: if we are open, curious, and empathetic, the great problems will find us.’

‘Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling used to say that the best way to have a good idea was to have lots of ideas.’

46 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

honorable mentions : The following projects were selected as Honorable Mentions for their outstanding design contributions.

Blue Day Awareness campaign targeted at reducing domestic water usage in Dubai.

Aisha Bin Zayed, Hanan Hairab & Shamsa Al Suwaidi, Dubai Women’s College, United Arab Emirates Blue Side Organization striving to inspire awareness and action to support a large-scale water conservation effort.

Punyaruk Baingern, Panchalee Phungsoondara, Emery Ullenberg & Maxx Valenti, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, United States GCH4 Waterless Toilet System Toilet design with a waterless, mechanical system for packaging and transport, facilitating a new urban infrastructure in which human waste is locally traded for energy and fertilizer.

Virginia Gardiner, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom

Know Water: An interactive Mapping Platform Interactive multimedia mapping platform consisting of website housing water case stud- ies and a multimedia kiosk allowing individuals to contribute information locally.

Ted Alcorn, Stan Alcorn, Joseph Bergen & Nicholas Dubroff, Johns Hopkins University, Yale College, Harvard University and MIT; United States Sonic Water Meter Device designed to measure water usage and patterns from a sonic sensor without touching a pipe line, allowing individuals to actively track and save water at home.

Angela Morelli, Central St. Martins University of London, United Kingdom THIS IS IT Global marketing campagin against the use of (PET) water bottles.

Kylie Holms, Monash University, Australia Virtual Water Revealed Labeling system allowing consumers to vis- ually identify and compare the amount of water used to produce agricultural products.

Alf Bae, Hongik University IDAS, South Korea sWell Solar-powered, mobile, inflatable filtration unit that filters gray floodwater into fresh potable water, and doubles as a life raft in flood conditions.

Alaina Prokopchuk, University of Manitoba, Canada

The Global Water Footprint of Humanity Campaign to raise awareness of the way we use water and of the invisible water footprint of products.

Kizzy Ezirio, San Diego State University, United States Your Water Multi-vehicle sustainable system of promoting the local resource of tap water.

Cristina Bianchi & Pekka Raety, University of Art & Design, Helsinki, Finland

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INDEX: would like to recognise and thank the following people and companies for their participation in the workshop in Copenhagen and for making this project possible.

48 designing water's future index: | aiga aspen design challenge

participating organizations

the jury Porter Anderson Margaret Catley-Carlson Dr. Peter Gleick Gerard V. Magbity

the advisors Deborah Adler Brian Collins Gary M. Cook Dr. Chris H. Luebkeman Fred Murrell

sponsor

Special thanks to UNICEF For engagement in the jury and for providing the venue for the Copenhagen workshop Pantone cool gray 5

K 34

Pantone cool gray 11

K 79

logo black&white

INDEX : 2009 is under the patronage of HRH the Crown Prince of Denmark.

Singapore is INDEX : Partner City.

INDEX : is supported by The Danish Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs, JL-Fondet, The Marketing Denmark Fund, The Capital Region of Denmark, The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI), The Danish Industry Foundation, Georg Jensen A/S, Royal Copenhagen A/S, Fritz Hansen A/S, Illums Bolighus A/S, The European Social Fund and The European Regional Development Fund.

INDEX : Supply Partners are Bilsby A/S and Vink A/S.

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Designing Water’s Future INDEX: | AIGA Aspen Design Challenge Impression: 500 Photography by Martin Bubandt J. Carl Ganter Printed in Denmark January 2010 Published by INDEX: Award A/S Copenhagen, Denmark T +45 33 89 20 05 info@indexaward.dk www.designtoimprovelife.dk It is the vision of INDEX: to change global mindsets by enhancing the understanding of challenges and broadening the perception of possible solutions - and the role of design within this area - among the general public INDEX: is a non-profit organization that has a global outreach and works to secure more Design to Improve Life projects of higher quality all over the world.

INDEX: presents, evaluates, awards, discusses, communicates, connects and advocates Design to Improve Life globally. The organization’s main tools are large-scale public events, educational and informative programs and communication, among these, the biggest design award in the world.

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