I built this device and presented it in class, but apparently, the weak internet connection made it difficult to see properly for students.

However, I think the rope can effectively transport water directly to the soil and plant roots. During class, pro. Mario Crippa asked how this would work for larger plants. As shown in the picture, I think the rope can extend to whatever depth we choose, depending on the soil depth. So, access to the soil shouldn’t be a major issue.

However, when it comes to the amount of water needed, we might have to consider using a larger water reservoir. Overall, this device seems more suitable for small indoor potted plants.

A Rope, Some Water, and a Plant with High Expectations was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As for my oily hair, dry shampoo seems to be the best solution. No water needed!

Water Went Rogue: A Pipe with Commitment Issues was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I bought a little device like this. You fill it with water, and it has a small hole at the bottom that is supposed to release water drop by drop. Now I need to figure out how well it actually works!

My Hair vs. My Plants: Who Needs Water First? was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been living with 3 roommates in a house in Porta Venezia for 5 years and a few months now. It’s a pretty big house, not really furnished new, just fixed up I’d say, anyway a really livable house, in the center of Milan. Around 5/6 roommates have passed through it, changing house and/or city for different reasons, but I’ve always gotten along with, more or less, all of them.

We have appliances that they actually bought new for us, like the dishwasher, the microwave, the oven. Anyway, when I first walked in I found them still in the plastic wrap, which is rare for a student house. In the end we’ve used all of them, we live in this house pretty well.

But one. Just one doesn’t seem to sit very well with my roommates… the dishwasher. And, like I said, it’s a sooooo common thing among them: not wanting to use it for the dishes, but washing them by hand.

Now, here some data comes to the rescue. Geopop, an Italian science site (big friend of quick information), reports a German study from the University of Bonn. It says a normal dishwasher cycle uses between 12 and 17.7 liters of water, while washing the same dishes by hand can take from 34.7 up to 160.1, depending on how you wash them, like leaving the tap running the whole time or filling up the whole sink.

Sure, you have to use it right, full and without rinsing the dishes under the tap first, which is really a habit of ours. In Italy that pre-rinse eats up almost 20 liters per wash on average, more than the dishwasher itself uses. But used right, can we all agree that with the dishwasher we use at least half the water, and sometimes more than ten times less? Well, my roommates don’t.

Over time, maybe after the first hard no’s, I tried to understand a bit of the reasons, coming from some biases. Like the mom who didn’t use it because she thought it used a lot, or them being the ones who think it uses a lot. And they’re not the only ones, you know, studies also say there are still people convinced, wrongly, that the dishwasher uses more than washing by hand.

But there’s one reason I just can’t swallow.

We pay for electricity, gas, plus the wifi. Not the water, the water is paid by our landlord. And since we don’t pay for it… using water is treated like not using anything. It doesn’t hit your wallet, so it’s like it doesn’t exist.

And anyway, even if you only think about money, the math doesn’t add up, because you wash dishes by hand with hot water, and hot water you heat with gas or electricity. Which we pay for.

Well, this reasoning is something I just can’t swallow, but not because they’re bad people, actually quite the opposite. It’s because basically, sometimes we come up with reasoning, sold as “pragmatic”, that doesn’t take into account the fact that, in the end, we’re always guests of something bigger, that we know too little about.

So yeah, one day I’ll manage to change their minds.
I hope so.

It’s Not Like We Pay for the Water was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m a designer, I graduated in Product Design, but before being a designer I like to call myself an observer and, as we say in Italian, a criticone, someone who always has something to criticize. Whether I say right or wrong things isn’t up to me, but I like to give my opinion, checking what I can, on things that very often nobody ever works on.

I like to think that a designer is a person of our time, who knows and has to have the kind of sensitivity to understand right away the habits and customs of a time and a place. They also have to know how to work on projects of, the way I see it, real relevance, whether it’s social, semantic, functional (why not), to make some situation better to live in.

So, I don’t get the water situation. I don’t get how people are supposed to know how much water they waste, and how much a liter of water even is. Today, how do you see how much water you’ve used? I rent, and honestly I’d have to ask my landlord for the numbers, but anyway I remember that when I lived with my parents there was a shared meter, like at the bottom of the stairs, inside a room that was always locked, and who knows, maybe only my dad had the keys. And it’s not just me: in most apartment buildings there’s just one meter for everyone and the bill gets split by estimate. So, realistically, how are you supposed to know how much you waste?

Now, a lot of water-saving campaigns try, they throw out huge numbers that, even though they’re true, look like ants, because you don’t know exactly how much, like, 150 liters is, or at least you have no idea what’s normal and what isn’t. Other campaigns instead point the finger at the disaster, they almost scare people, and there too, as right as they are (never questioned that), for the average person these documentaries and this kind of media just get scrolled past, because they scare you and you move on.

This is where a bit of psychology comes in. First, the numbers: in an American study with more than a thousand people, it turned out that on average we think we use half the water we actually use, and the more an activity uses, the more we get the estimate wrong. So if you have no idea how much a liter is, let alone 150. Then there’s fear: according to several studies, a message that scares you without also telling you what you can actually do doesn’t make you change, it makes you defensive, you deny it, you avoid it, so you scroll. And what works instead? Seeing it, the water. In Switzerland they put a small display under the shower head in hundreds of homes, showing in real time how much water people were using, and consumption dropped by about 20%, no preaching and no fear, just by seeing the number. And in the United States, with more than 100,000 households, telling people how much they used compared to their neighbors worked better than both technical tips and simple appeals to the common good, even if the effect fades over time, to be fair. Which is exactly that “what’s normal and what isn’t” I was talking about before.

So, do I have the solution to all this? No. I’m just telling you how I see things, as the 25-year-old I am, but there are definitely solutions to find, also in the communication meant to raise awareness, a word everyone uses today, but how aware do people actually become? So also a kind of communication that fits people better, that maybe can even be different for some. But at least writing the problem down is already something: as Charles Kettering said, or at least so they say, a problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Or anyway, I hope so.

How Much Is a Liter of Water? was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a kid in Sicily, saving water was normal. Then I moved to Milan.

I want to tell you about when I was a kid and water rationing was just normal, and in Sicily, in the Egadi Islands, it still is.

I’m from Trapani, on the western tip of Sicily, and I’m sensitive to wasting water. I’ve always been careful about it, but I used to feel kind of weird about it.

When I was a kid I was always in Favignana, we had a house there, at the Praia, an important beach because it’s right next to the Ex Stabilimento Florio, the old tuna factory of Favignana. It was a beautiful place, just think about being a kid in a Favignana that wasn’t drowning in overtourism yet, smelling the sea already at breakfast with milk and cereal.

But in Favignana, and not everyone knows this, like a lot of places in Sicily, there’s drought and the land is turning into desert. So less water, it’s barely enough for everyone and especially for the islands, the Egadi in this case, which Favignana is part of and, let’s be real, the flagship of.

So basically in Favignana the water just isn’t there. Lots of houses, apartments and bars have a well, at least the older houses. So since I was little, every summer, I’ve always had this thing of “non sprecare l’acqua, che poi non arriva”, don’t waste the water, it might not come, like my mom always used to tell me.

Then over time, growing up, I saw that in Milan it wasn’t a problem. Or at least a lot of people didn’t, and still don’t, see water as something precious, they look more at what they spend. Like, water? Ok, I need to shower, it takes as long as it takes.

And look, it’s nobody’s fault. If you’ve never seen the water not coming, you think there’s always enough, so you save on something else, like money. And in Milan a thousand liters cost like one euro, so on the bill water is basically nothing.

In Favignana the question wasn’t how much it costs, it was if it was coming at all.

So basically there are people who count money and people who count water. I grew up counting water, and as a kid I thought it was normal. Which, actually, it is.

“Don’t Waste the Water. It Might Not Come.” was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How might we make water consumption more visible and tangible, while making water-saving behaviors easier to integrate into everyday life?

And honestly, I had many ideas.

Many of my first ideas were connected directly to the water source: something attached to the shower, the kitchen tap, or the bathroom sink.

But then I thought…

What if it could be something more flexible?

Something that could communicate my water consumption without being attached to only one activity.

And then another thought came to my mind:

What if it felt more like an Alexa?

Not necessarily because you talk to it, but because it becomes an object that lives in your home. Something you actually want to have there.

Not just because it helps you save water.

Please, not another number

During my survey, people mentioned meters, real-time consumption, limits, and feedback. And yes, I think having access to this information is important.

But I kept thinking:

Do I really want another number constantly asking for my attention?

We already have enough numbers around us.

Steps. Calories. Screen time. Notifications. Battery percentages.

So I started separating two things in my mind.

The detailed information could exist in another layer, maybe an app where I could see my consumption by day, week, month, or year, similar to how we track our steps.

But the object itself could be much simpler.

Light. Maybe sound. Maybe an expression.

Something calm.

No alarms. No constant notifications.

Just something in the space that gently tells me:

Hey, pay attention.

Sketching without overthinking

At this point, I decided to stop researching.

Not because there was nothing else to learn, but because I already had enough inputs to start making something.

So I started exploring some ideas through quick sketches.

What if…?

No, maybe…

But what if…?

And then…

Okay. Yes. Let’s go this way.

I kept coming back to the same visual elements: the shape of a water drop, transparency, light, fluidity.

I wanted the object to feel connected to water, but I also wanted it to be something I would actually like to have in my bathroom.

I remembered one response from my survey: someone wanted to reuse shower water, but hated having a bucket there because it looked terrible.

That stayed with me.

What if a water-saving object didn’t feel like an extra object you had to tolerate, but something you actually wanted in your space?

From numbers to ambient feedback

Slowly, the idea became clearer.

When water consumption is low, the object could feel calm.

As consumption increases, its light could change.

And when consumption becomes high, the change could become more noticeable.

Blue → yellow → red.

The expression could change too.

Not to punish the person, but to create a very simple emotional signal.

No need to stop and calculate liters.

No need to constantly check a screen.

The information is simply there.

And maybe, little by little, responding to that signal could become part of the shower routine. Just like turning on the light when we enter a room.

But drawing wasn’t enough

I tried sketching the form, but honestly… it wasn’t flowing.

I wanted curves. Transparency. Something soft and fluid.

So instead of continuing to draw, I started looking at materials.

Paper?

Too rigid.

Plastic?

Maybe, but it didn’t give me the feeling I was looking for.

Then I looked around my kitchen.

And there it was.

Rice paper.

Okay… let’s try that.

I use rice paper in my everyday cooking, but suddenly it became a prototyping material.

It had something I was looking for: transparency, flexibility, layers, and a visual connection with water.

So I wet my hands, experimented with the material, used towels to control the water, folded it, layered it, let it dry, tried again…

And slowly, a little water-like object started to appear.

Not perfect.

But that was exactly the point.

And then, the light

Once I placed light behind the material, things started to make sense.

The layers reflected and diffused the light differently. The object changed depending on the color inside it.

And suddenly I could see the idea I had been thinking about:

Water consumption becoming visible in the space around me.

I experimented with different states:

Blue — low consumption / calm
Yellow — consumption is increasing / pay attention
Red — high consumption / time to reduce

I also added very simple expressions to explore whether the feedback could feel a little more emotional and intuitive, instead of becoming another technical indicator.

So… meet WAVI

And that’s how WAVI came to life.

For now, WAVI is not a finished product, but a first prototype to explore this idea.

The prototype is an ambient light object for the bathroom,
designed to make water consumption visible and tangible,
in order to help people become more aware of their water use without adding extra effort,
by changing its light and expression according to water consumption.

The detailed numbers could still exist somewhere else, maybe in a digital layer.

But WAVI doesn’t ask you to read them.

It just makes something invisible a little harder to ignore.

Some rice paper, a little light… and WAVI was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I had measured and kept track of my daily water consumption on an excell file that you can find here: Living in water scarcity — a diary.xlsx

A little bit of the process:

• Using a chronometer, I calculated the amount of water per minute if I open the tap completely, and if I open it just a little. But how much is just “a little” and how can I be sure that today’s little is the same for tomorrow?

• I came up with a simple idea to provide visual feedback when the tap is opened too much. Measuring the flow rate is important not only to know and control how much water I use per minute, but also because if the tap is opened only slightly, the flow may not be sufficient to activate the water heater. As a result, hot water would not be available.
• I collected the water I used these days for washing hands, face, showering, and reused it for toilet flush.

• I calculate that approximately I have been able to collect the 40% — 50% of water I used during shower (using a 10l bucket).
• The amount of water used in bathroom increases at Polimi because the toilet not allows to flush with less water than the whole deposit.

My conclusions so far:

• Reducing water consumption may increase the use of other resources, such as paper towels, napkins, or electricity. For example, it is often more efficient to wash dishes or clothes using a machine rather than by hand. However, this raises another question: how is the electricity used by these appliances generated? Does electricity production also consume water?
• The thing that I spend most water on is toilet flush. Every flush uses too much water, maybe we could use less water and more air pressure (we should invent something on this point, hey dyson ;) or use the existing system but with grey water.
• Most of the water we use everyday is greywater that could be reused (washing machine, dishwasher, washing hands, face, etc) for things like washing the car, toilet flush, watering, etc.
• Drinking, cooking and washing hands are things that doesn’t consume a significant amount of water.

atte: abril :)

Living on water scarcity was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Counting seconds in my head was extremely inconvenient, so from the beginning, I used the timer on my phone. However, this method wasn’t particularly comfortable either. When you wash dishes, your hands are always wet, so the phone doesn’t respond properly to your touch. Moreover, constantly exposing it to water isn’t good for the device itself. This problem became even more noticeable when showering. Turning the timer on and off every time I switched the water on or off was really annoying. So I started thinking about other ways to measure my water consumption.

A voice assistant immediately came to mind. I tried Siri a few times because it has access to the phone’s built-in timer, but it worked rather poorly. Then I decided to try ChatGPT. Its timer turned out to be quite precise. From that moment, measuring my water consumption while showering and washing dishes became not only more convenient but also fun again. I was just saying “go” when turning on the water and “stop” when turning it off. Also it was easy to ask him immediately calculate the amount of water spend. It felt futuristic.

Product.
Later, I remembered that the goal wasn’t to optimize the measurement process but to reduce water waste. This led me to an idea for maintaining a low water flow during everyday activities without having to constantly think about it.

The idea is to introduce a simple tactile mechanism into the faucet. A series of small ridges could be placed between its moving parts, creating slight resistance and vibration as you turn the handle. Each ridge would correspond to a certain level of water flow, allowing you to feel when you reach it and easily keep the handle in that position.

Instead of adjusting the water flow by eye every time, you could rely on tactile feedback to select a consistent flow rate. This would make it easier to use less water without having to consciously control the faucet every time.

Focused on counting was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making a self-watering, recirculating wick planter system.

If you’ve ever over-watered or under-watered your plants, this one might be for you.

Taking care of plants is a process that can involve a lot of water wastage if not careful.
Where plant watering wastes water-

• It runs straight out of the drainage hole onto the floor.
• It evaporates from the soil surface and from open water containers.
• It gets poured in excess “just to be safe,” then drains away unused.

None of these feels like a big loss on a single day. But repeated across many plants and many weeks, it adds up to a lot of water that never really gets used.

The Idea

What if the water never left the system? What if the plant could drink only when thirsty, and anything that drained through the soil simply returned to where it came from?

That’s the whole design- a sealed jar of water, a cloth wick, and potted plants sitting on top.

How it works

A cloth wick runs from the water in a sealed glass jar, through a hole in the lid, and up into the soil of the pot sitting on top. Through capillary action, water climbs the fibers of the cloth whenever the soil is dry and slows down when the soil is damp, so the plant only gets what it needs. Any extra water that drains through the pot’s base drips back into the same jar to be wicked up again, so the water is reused instead of lost to evaporation or runoff.

Where the water is saved

1. The sealed lid stops evaporation. An open bowl or a watering can left standing loses water to the air daily. A closed jar loses almost none. The only water that leaves is what the plant actually drinks.

2. The wick delivers on demand. Through capillary action, the cloth pulls water up only when the soil is dry. When the soil is damp, the flow slows down. This removes the habit of overwatering, which is the biggest source of wasted water in my own routine.

3. Drained water comes back. When I water the plant, the extra water doesn’t run onto the floor. It passes through the soil, drips back into the jar, and waits to be wicked up again. The same water gets used again and again.

4. Delivery is targeted. The wick sits right at the roots, so water goes where it’s needed.

5. Fewer refills. One jar lasts days and can be done before a trip.

A jar and a strip of cloth won’t change the world. But the thinking behind them might: use water only where it’s needed, keep it from escaping, and reuse what you can. That applies to far more than houseplants.

If you have a spare jar and an old cotton shirt, try it this weekend. Your plants will be fine, and you’ll be surprised how little water they actually need.

Prototyping for my Plants. was originally published in Living under water stress on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.