On Saturday, September 12th, Urban Studio, a program of Green Village Philadelphia, held a charette to involve stakeholders from local environmental organizations and community groups in the process of designing an innovative rain collection system.
The goal of this meeting was to break away from the standard rain “barrel” and design something more functional that appeals to the needs of a greater population. The group developed a set of design criteria that included things such as reasonable cost, space efficiency and ease of installation. The group was then broken into teams and given an hour to design three new rain collection systems.
The new designs tended toward aesthetics, dual-function and modularity. The most common designs were water holding benches and flow-through planters.
Proposed designs will be presented at an interactive workshop on Thursday, October 8th, from 6 – 9pm at 1205 North 4th Street 1st Floor, as part of Design Philadelphia’s annual design celebration.
