設計師創天然集水塔 造福衣索比亞
2014-10-11
義大利設計師艾托羅（音譯）發明天然集水塔，希望解決衣索比亞乾旱問題。（圖擷取自Catalogodiseno網站）
空氣中的水氣會在內部的網子凝結成珠，然後向下滑落。（圖擷取自Catalogodiseno網站）
底下的儲水盆每天至少可以收集到95公升的水資源。（圖擷取自Catalogodiseno網站）
集水塔只要花費約1.6萬台幣，4人1組便可以製成，而且材料大多使用當地素材，成本相當低。（圖擷取自Catalogodiseno網站）
《每日郵報》報導，這座約9公尺高、39公斤重的的集水塔，可以凝結清晨的霧氣等空氣中的水分，集中在塔下的儲水盆，單座水塔1日至少能收集到約95公升的水量，而且成本遠遠比挖掘水脈還低，艾托羅直接採用當地的一種Warka樹以及藺草，編成外圍花瓶狀的籠子，再用尼龍和聚丙烯等材質編成內部凝結水分的網子，不需要先進的高科技，只要花費約550美金（約1.6萬台幣）的材料費用，4人1組就可以做出一座水塔。
艾托羅指出，這項發明是為了提供乾淨的水資源，以及確保環境、經濟、社會等可以永續發展，「如果當地居民學會了製作方法，他們可以去其他的村莊教學，指導他們如何建造水塔，」艾托羅目前正在找尋資金贊助，希望2015年可以在衣索比亞廣泛實施。
艾托羅指出，這項發明是為了提供乾淨的水資源，以及確保環境、經濟、社會等可以永續發展，「如果當地居民學會了製作方法，他們可以去其他的村莊教學，指導他們如何建造水塔，」艾托羅目前正在找尋資金贊助，希望2015年可以在衣索比亞廣泛實施。
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以下圖文轉載自:
A Bamboo Tower That Produces Water From Air
Created by Arturo Vittori and his team at Architecture and Vision, the towers harvest water from rain, fog and dew. This isn’t a new idea—people have been doing this for as long as they've needed water, often with air wells. Often built as high-rising stone structures, air wells gather moisture from the air and funnel it into a basin for collection. The WarkaWater functions in much the same way, using mesh netting to capture moisture and direct it into hygienic holding tank accessed via a spout.
We wrote
about the towers last year when Vittori unveiled a full-size prototype.
The company has a newer version of the WarkaWater and a Kickstarter
campaign to fund field testing in Ethiopia later this year. Based on
tests performed in its Italian lab, the company claims the latest
iteration can harvest 13 to 26.4 gallons of water daily. That’s less
than most people flush away each day, but a significant quantity in a
country where some 60 million people lack sufficient potable water.
How the system works. Illustration: WarkaWater
The
new prototype has some key upgrades: The exterior is of bamboo rather
than juncus, the top of the tower has reflective pieces to deter birds,
and the structure is larger (13 feet wide, up from 7). This doubled the
surface area of its water-resistant polyester mesh netting—the orange
material you see—so more water is collected as fog permeates the fine
mesh. MIT has been researching
a similar fog harvesting technique that draws inspiration from the
Namib beetle. The process of collecting rain is straightforward, but
capturing dew is slightly more complicated. Dew forms when the surface
area temperature drops relative to the surrounding air. This happens
most often in the time between nightfall and sunrise. Vittori is
researching materials for the funnel section of the WarkaWater (between
mesh netting and the tank) that will lose heat as quickly as possible in
order to optimize the small window of dew-production.
The WarkaWater
will cost around $1,000 to produce and requires no electricity. Vittori
says it takes less than an hour to assemble the five modules into a
finished tower, making it easily packed and moved as necessary. The
practical goal is for the WarkaWater to become an efficient
round-the-clock water production machine. But populating the landscape
with alien towers is about more than just functionality, it’s about
architecture. You can tell Vittori wanted to design something iconic,
but beyond that is the tower’s potential to the social nexus of a
village. With fabric canopies that stretch out like a peplum skirt, the
towers could be a place where people gather to socialize and seek
shelter from the sun, just as they would beneath a leafy Warka tree.
