hydria
A domestic water recycling unit that redefines our relationship with water. Decentralising water purification, recycling, and repurposing technology.
Professor - Mirko Daneluzzo
Year - 2020
In Collaboration With - Nikhilesh Mohan
RESEARCH + CONTEXT
Water is an essential resource for human life. The way we create, distribute, and use water within our cities is an elaborate and inefficient process. The United Arab Emirates a rapidly growing country, yet it is also among the driest. Due to the countries lack of freshwater recourses, it relies on 98.8% desalinated water to meet the rising demand for fresh water in the country.
Every day, 7.5 million cubic meters of water are produced through 70 different desalination plants scattered across the UAE’s coastline. The average water consumption per day, per person around the world is 250 liters. Whereas in the UAE 2.5 times as high, at 625 liters consumed per day. The statistics we found were alarming and urged us to further study and understand the journey of water in the UAE.
HOW IT WORKS
Hydria is a domestic water recycling unit that helps us reduce our overconsumption and abuse of water as a resource. It provides us the tools to develop a more symbiotic relationship with water and a more environmentally conscious lifestyle.
Hydria recycles and repurposes left-over water from kitchen activities such as straining pasta, washing produce, soaking stuff, etc.It uses a 3-stage natural filtration system with naturally purifying elements, gravel, sand, and activated charcoal. Cooking, defrosting, washing and other activities conducted within our kitchens produce a lot of water that we consider as waste and thus drain out from our sinks.
As previously noted, this water is not unclean, in fact, it can conveniently and effectively be recycled and used for other activities that require water within our homes, such as watering plants, mopping, ironing, etc.
This allows us to consider activities as sources of water and connect two completely different activities with each other, changing the way in which we perceive water and execute tasks within our domestic environments. For instance, the water recovered after cooking pasta may be used to fill one's iron, mop the floor, water plants, amongst other things.
