15 July 2010
Designing Melbourne's Water Future
A room filled with test tubes, the water footprint of a cup of coffee and special grid comparing per capita water consumption of global cities are some of the ways local designers are asking Melburnians to start thinking about water differently.
Melbourne Water's free 'Creating Liveable Cities' exhibition, focussing on water smart cities, is on from 16-23 July in the QV Building as part of the State of Design Festival.
The four pieces at the 2010 exhibition are refined from hundreds of ideas generated at the 'Creating Liveable Cities' workshop run by Melbourne Water and State of Design last year, with over 100 participants from design and water industries.
Each design firm concentrated on a different angle, culminating in the 'Creating Liveable Cities' exhibition, which will highlight a series of ideas and visualisations about water use and management, including consumer's "water footprint", future predictions for our cities and water management around the world.
Melbourne Water Acting Managing Director, Chris Chesterfield, said that State of Design was a great opportunity to collaborate with the design community to explore what water-friendly cities could look like.
"We're facing a future of population growth and climate uncertainty, and we need to look to new and innovative ways to use and manage water," said Mr Chesterfield.
"Ultimately we want to maintain Melbourne's reputation as one of the world's most liveable cities. This means finding ways to harvest, use and dispose of water in our cities that are environmentally sustainable and enhance our lifestyles.
"As a community we value our green open space and active lifestyles, and the challenge we face is to find ways to support this through clever water infrastructure and systems."
The installations that make up the 'Creating Liveable Cities' exhibition are:
- 'Fortune 5000' (by Room 11) – Visitors walk under thousands of test tubes suspended from the ceiling, filled with predictions about our water future that encourage people to think about and discuss their ideas for a liveable city.
- 'Flowing Data' (by Oom Creative) – A series of striking visuals depicting a decade of rainfall over Melbourne's rivers and water storages, highlighting the changing nature of our climate.
- 'Green Grid' (by I.N.D.J)- Constructed from laser-cut plywood and turf and set with touch screens, this exhibit compares water use per person in water smart cities around the world.
- 'Embodied Water' (by Buro North) - Larger-than-life representations of everyday products expose the high water consumption needed to produce the things that we consume daily, like coffee, steak and apples.
WHAT: Melbourne Water's "Creating Liveable Cities" Exhibition
WHERE: Shop 25-31, Jane Bell Lane, QV Building
WHEN: 16-23 July 2010; 10am-5pm daily
Free to enter
Media Contact: Kalli Marshall at The Trish Nicol Agency - 02 9356 2711