THE ATMOSPHERIC WATER HARVESTING CENTRE
by Timea Iulia Kadar
The summer of 2022 was proclaimed to be the driest summer in the UK in the last 50 years. The conditions, which have almost completely deprived some areas of rainfall all summer, have prompted the National Drought Group to move parts of the Southwest, parts of Southern and Central England into official drought status. Hosepipe bans remained in place for Cornwall and parts of North Devon all summer of 2022. The Atmospheric Water Harvesting Centre’s vision is to find solutions to the water shortage problem in Cornwall during hot summer months. The design acts as a strategic public-serving architectural intervention to help restore the Cornish agricultural lands through innovative water harvesting processes. The project’s site is the St. Austell Clay Pits in Cornwall. The site is formed by a group of locations within active China clay quarries that form a single Site of Special Scientific Interest. The first year of the prototype building will have the purpose of harvesting fog, dew, and rain from the air. The water collected will be used to maintain one acre of wheatland and crops in greenhouses. In 5-10 years’ time, if successful, the prototype could be replicated and could become a regional/national strategy to provide water for agricultural lands in the UK.
