Les Gouttelettes

Access to clean water is always mediated, whether by governments or privatised systems. Yet this mediation reveals a paradox: in both urban and underdeveloped regions, aging infrastructure, cost-cutting policies, and declining public trust have pushed people toward bottled water, ironically intensifying pollution, chemical exposure, and environmental degradation. Corporations monetise the fear of “un-purified” water, promoting disposable plastic filters that deepen the cycle of waste and contamination.

Our challenge:
How might we reimagine water access not as a transaction, but as a personal, communal, poetic, and practical ritual?

Inspired by the intersection of the organic and the scientific — the form of a dew drop and the function of traditional water distillers — we designed a structure rooted in ecological interdependence that deliberately excludes plastic and chemical dependency.

We conceptualised a modular filtration system composed of aquatic plants, dried kelp, moringa seeds, charcoal, and ceramics, enhanced by UV exposure. Each component is designed for both practical value and long-term function: modular in structure, easy to disassemble, clean, and reuse.