Warka Water towers harvest drinkable water from the air

In this exclusive movie, Italian architect Arturo Vittori explains how his wooden Warka Water structures can provide clean drinking water for rural communities in the developing world. Through the Warka Water project, Vittori is investigating alternative water sources for remote communities without access to running water. “Warka Water is a philosophy looking at the environment and different possibilities to collect and harvest water in a sustainable way,“ he explains in the movie, which Dezeen filmed at his studio in the countryside outside Rome. Vittori is currently developing a lightweight wooden tower – which is quick and cheap to build without any power tools – that harvests water from the atmosphere via condensation. The tower consists of a bamboo frame supporting a mesh polyester material inside. Rain, fog and dew condenses against the mesh and trickles down a funnel into a reservoir at the base of the structure. A fabric canopy shades the lower sections of the tower to prevent the collected water