The Entire Ocean in a Drop

Water is essential to people and nature, yet it is often treated as something separate from ourselves: something we manage, control, use and dispose of. The Waterambassade wants to change this relationship and sees water not as a product, but as part of a living ecosystem of which we ourselves are part. Particularly within housing and urban development, Waterambassade explores how a stronger connection with water can contribute to a healthy and resilient water system.

How can a deeper connection with water contribute to a different way of thinking and acting within the built environment?

The question focused on making this connection tangible and experiential, so that water is given a meaningful place in design and construction processes from the outset.

To explore this question further, Waterambassade and Dutch Design Foundation selected designer Jeroen Peeters of Future of Now. Drawing on his experience in making complex transitions tangible and experiential, Jeroen explored how the relationship between water and the built environment could be made more tangible.

Jeroen spoke with professionals from the construction and water sectors and examined how water is approached within construction processes. This revealed that water is often discussed in technical terms, measured in cubic metres and litres, while paying attention to the qualities and experience of water is less self-evident.

Jeroen Peeters developed In Goede Handen (translation: In Good Hands): a series of twenty pens, each with a small glass sphere at the end that is filled with water. As you write, the water moves and catches the light across the paper. In this way, water is literally given a place at the meeting table, while the pen becomes a prompt for conversations about water, responsibility and the built environment.

The pens were passed on to so-called water bearers: professionals from the construction and water sectors who are exploring how they can give water a different place in their work. By filling, using and ultimately passing on the pen, a growing network emerges in which experiences and responsibility around water are shared.

During his research, Jeroen Peeters found that there is growing awareness of the water transition within the construction sector and that technical solutions are available, but that change also requires personal involvement and responsibility. The pen therefore did not become a technical solution to the water challenge, but a means of making water visible and tangible, encouraging professionals to reflect differently on their own role.

For Waterambassade, this approach connected with a broader exploration of the socio-cultural dimension of the water transition, in which not only technology but also behaviour, experience and underlying values play a role.