London Design Biennale 2016
Saudi Design Pavilion
The Challenge
Participating country pavilions were asked to respond to the Inaugural theme: Utopia by Design. The resulting commissions, which were showcased at the Somerset House in London, were richly varied, including fantastical imaginings of future cities, homages to unrealised utopian proposals of the past, and innovative solutions for issues in 21st-century life.
The Approach
Water Machine was a giant gumball machine, of the kind familiar from newsagents and corner shops, which distributed globes of water if you insert the right money. Water is an increasingly scarce resource the world over, but there are few places that this fact is felt as keenly as Saudi Arabia. Primarily desert, the country relies on desalination plants to reclaim fresh water from the sea, an expensive and energy-hungry process.
Voted as one of the Top 10 participations
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