Nicole Turner
There were a lot of firsts when Interdesign ’99 Water kicked off simultaneously in Mexico, Australia and South Africa in April this year.
Industrial design experts from around the world had gathered to brainstorm about water, which all those participating agreed was life itself.
Although this was the 32nd Interdesign conference since 1972, Interdesign ’99 Water, initiated and sponsored by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS)Design Institute, was the first in Africa and the first trans-continental attempt at bringing together international and local designers.
It was also the first time that the Internet was used to link designers in three countries as they put their heads together to find innovative ways of dealing with basic problems.
South Africa, Mexico and Australia are all arid countries. In South Africa water demand grows at 4% to 5% a year, and if those demands are not curbed, we will run out of water in 20 years. At the same time nearly 10-million people do not have access to clean water, a gap the government is constitutionally obliged to fill.
The two-week exercise started with site visits to three communities with unique problems related to water. Design teams spent two days getting to grips with community problems. In Hammanskraal, for instance, the community relied on bore-hole water which was high in fluoride and often contaminated with faeces and even corpses.
At Garasai a necessary but expensive water purification plant had been constructed by Magalies Water. The company ran into problems with the community who were not consulted and took umbrage at having to pay for clean water.
The major water problems for rural people are transportation, purity and sanitation. Teams of international and local designers looked at broad themes, like payment, conservation and transport.
Chris Bradnum, a lecturer in industrial design at Wits Technikon, was the leader for the group that looked at harvesting and storage of rain water. “In Johannesburg people flush away more than a whole rural family uses in a day. A rural family often has to buy their water … and for a household earning R400 a month, 25 cents for 25 litres of water is expensive.”
The designers worked with experts with broader knowledge, throwing ideas around and testing them. They had to deal with some earthy realities. “For instance, in some rural communities open-pit toilets pose a hazard to children. The children defecate around the house until they are big enough to use the pit toilets without falling in.
“Children’s faeces are every high in disease – that has obvious implications for where you store water,” says Bradnum.
A family of six can get enough drinking water for a year by keeping rainwater, so designers looked at methods of collecting rainwater from the roofs of grass huts, and suitable ways of storing the water. One solutionis to use a plastic sheet over the roof. The sheet, made from locally manufactured polypropylene can be folded to catch rainwater which can then be stored in a sand dam.
A sand dam uses dam seal, river sand and stones to filter water and keep it uncontaminated. “We looked at empowerment issues around this. A lot of construction companies are out of work -they could be put to work to teach communities how to make sand dams.”
The issue of where children defecate is something that still has to be worked out. The sanitation team came up with a cheap hand-washing method, basically a plastic bottle that gushes a small amount of water on to dirty hands.
They also looked at how to make VIPs (ventilated improved pit latrines) more accessible to children and safe to use.
Consideration was given to a very successful scheme in India which separated liquid and solids so that the solids could be dried and used as fertiliser. “The project was too successful – people weren’t waiting for the solids to dry and were using raw fecal matter to fertilise their crops,” says Bradnum.
The job of transporting water from communal taps to houses normally falls to women and children, and designers came up with unique water carrying bags that can be assembled locally using soft plastic sides with an injection-moulded lid. The bags come in three sizes and can be fitted with a variety of handles and accessories. The idea is that a child can go to school with the empty bag, fill it on her way back and carry the bag like a rucksack. At home it can be hung on the wall and used as a shower, for example.
Although it is illegal in South Africa, a dual system that provides drinking and other water separately could help to conserve water and ensuring that poor people at least have access to clean drinking water. Delegates discussed approaching commercial bottling companies who refilter water for their products, to use excess capacity to provide drinking water to communities.
The problem with providing clean water is that it costs money, and rural communities sometimes battle to get to grips with payment systems. The payment team had many workable options to offer and devised a card game that can used by communities to evaluate various options and how much they cost to implement.
“These are all just ideas at the moment; we haven’t got around to the design stage yet, but they will be taken further,” says Bradnum.
The South African group leaders are meeting the SABS with a view to finding sponsorship to develop ideas into marketable products.
“We are only going to take up the viable options. We’re looking at building a house in progress, and testing systems in real conditions,” he says.
The bottom line is that any solutions have to be acceptable to the community.
“Designs must not be imposed on the community. Rather we must work closely with them and get feedback and constantly evaluate options.”
Get the results of Interdesign ’99 Water at