Designers Envision the Future of Water at A/D/O
about 61 months ago (04/18/2019)
It’s 7:30 am on April 5, 2024. Yawning, I roll out of bed, grab a bar of soap, and step into the bathroom to wash my face as I do every morning—but when I twist the knob to turn on the tap, the familiar hum of running water is absent. There is only silence. The pipes are dry. For Jane Withers, the London-based curator and writer who led Water Futures, design incubator A/D/O’s latest initiative, this dystopia may not be so fictional. It’s estimated that Great Britain could run out of water within the next twenty-five years (which is rather ironic, considering the entire country is surrounded by the sea). Withers’ Water Futures addresses twenty-first century concerns around water access, recycling, and the future of safe drinking water. The year-long program included talks, workshops, and culminates in an exhibition of projects from the Water Futures Design Challenge. Designers were given a broad prompt to conceptualize projects around the use and reuse of water, from education and