Warka Water | Drinking of the air | Architecture and Vision

“Around the world, 768 million people don’t have access to safe water, and every day 1,400 childrenunder the age of five die from water-based diseases. Designer Arturo Vittori believes the solution to this catastrophe lies not in high technology, but in sculptures that look like giant-sized objects from the pages of a Pier 1 catalog.

His stunning water towers stand nearly 30 feet tall and can collect over 25 gallons of potable water per day by harvesting atmospheric water vapor. Called Warka Water towers, each pillar is comprised of two sections: a semi-rigid exoskeleton built by tying stalks of juncus or bamboo together and an internal plastic mesh, reminiscent of the bags oranges come in. The nylon and polypropylene fibers act as a scaffold for condensation, and as the droplets of dew form, they follow the mesh into a basin at the base of the structure.

“Warka Water is designed to provide clean water as well as ensure long-term environmental, financial and social sustainability” Arturo Vittori says. “Once locals have the necessary know how, they will be able to teach others villages and communities to build the WarkaWater towers.”

Vittori and his team have tested the design in multiple locations and worked in improvements that increase the frame’s stability while simultaneously making it easy for villagers to clean the internal mesh. They hopes to have two Warka Towers erected in Ethiopia by 2015 and is looking for financial rainmakers who’d like to seed these tree-inspired structures across the country”

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 (via WIRED)

Valuable sustainable environmental project run by Architecture and Vision that, in the awareness of the problems caused by lack of water in Ethiopia, is undertaken with creativity this innovative project aiming to fill this lack. The lack of rainfall is supplied by these structures that collect water generated by the moisture in drastic temperature changes.

Lightweight structures and self-constructable, due to scale, allow more water gathering ability and also become a landscape landmark, that multiplicands in the territory generate an infrastructure needed in many places.