“Projects ‘for the 90%’
mostly fall somewhere between two extremes: charity and business,”
designer Gabriele Diamanti tells Co.Design. “Neither was my
inspiration!” Instead, spurred on by his own extensive travel and friends’
involvement in NGOs, he developed a fascination with global water scarcity as a
graduate student at Milan Polytechnic in 2005; he recently decided to pursue
his interest again and the result is Eliodomestico, an open-source variation on
a solar still.
It
functions by filling the black boiler with salty sea water in the morning, then
tightening the cap. As the temperature and pressure grows, steam is forced
downwards through a connection pipe and collects in the lid, which acts as a
condenser, turning the steam into fresh water. Once Diamanti established the
fundamentals were sound, he experimented with a series of concepts for the
aesthetic of the object. “My goal was to design something friendly and
recognizable for the users,” he explains. “The process developed quite
naturally to determine the current shape; every detail is there for a reason,
so the form, as well as production techniques, represent a compromise between
technical and traditional.”
Primary
field studies in sub-Saharan Africa revealed the habit of carrying goods on the
head–also a common practice in other areas around the world–and this was
integrated into Eliodomestico’s plan. And while solar stills aren’t a totally
new concept, Diamanti says it’s rare to find them in a domestic context rather
than in missions or hospitals, or as large plants overseen by qualified
personnel that serve entire communities. “I tried to make something for a real
household that could be operated directly by the families,” he says.
The project
recently won a Core77 Design Award for Social Impact;
already, Diamanti has received international feedback, and hopes to see locals
adapt and modify the design to take advantage of their own readily available
materials and native environments. “The idea is that instructions for the
project can be delivered to craftsmen” with the help of NGOs, he says, then a
micro-credit program could be established to finance small-scale start-ups
specializing in production. “So the NGO is the spark, micro-credit is the fuse,
the local craftsmen are the bomb!”
