New York designers Agency-Agency and Chris Woebken have created a series of bright blue plumbing fixtures that could turn the city’s fire hydrants into public drinking fountains or showers.
The conceptual project, dubbed New Public Hydrant, was developed over summer 2018 in response to a brief from the Water Futures research programme organised by Brooklyn creative space A/D/O.
Curated by Jane Withers, the initiative aims to find design responses to the world’s increasingly pressing water scarcity issues.
"Water Futures aims to inspire the creative community to take action in reimagining our toxic drinking water culture," according to the dedicated website.
"While New York City is one of only five major cities in the country with a high enough water quality that does not require filtration, this fact is often neglected in favour of purchasing filtered water in plastic bottles," said Agency-Agency, who teamed up with Woebken on the project.
Four shallow dishes at various heights would allow adults, children, dogs, and birds to drink the city water.
Next in the series, Hydrant on Tap is a refill station for reusable water bottles.
These would also the users to control the water flow.
"You can actually use the valve to control the water pressure as well depending on how you turn it," Carpenter said.
Photography is by Tei Carpenter and Chris Woebken.