Through the development of the water point, our aims moved from creating just a meeting place, to test how far we could go in purifying urban water or even making it fit for human consumption. We started investigating drinking water standards (according to EU, WHO, ISO guidelines), probes, filter systems and measuring devices and forged alliances with chemist and DIY water-engineers.

From digging for water to drinking rain
2011-2013
[Creative Coommons 3.0, Brussels, june 2013]

As part of EauPropre I ProperWater the low tech water purification system would be connected to the rain harvesting pavilion. This led to some technical specification: the system had to be mobile and compact, had to work with changing flow rates, and be able to filter rain-water at the simple request of passers-by/visitors, without ha­ving to make them wait too long.

Therefore (and much to our regret) the following plans had to be abandoned. These methods were too slow, too uncertain or required electricity or constant care.

We decided to list them here below, just for the fun of it:

In an attempt to turn rain, public space enemy number one, into an ally, a temporary structure was imagined that with a funnel roof would capture rain water which would then be made fit for human consumption. It would prove the ideal catalyst for a series of discussion, debates, exchanges, the creation of artefacts and spin-off projects that carry on beyond the initial project.

The Proper Water Filter system

The filter set-up that survived drinking quality tests is a combi­nation of pre-filtration already taking place in the storage tank, and a collection of four micro-filtration (membranes with pores of 5 and 0.1µm) and ultra-filtration (membranes with pores between 0.1 and 0.01µm) filter heads that last for about six months.