Sussex Dew Mine

John Becker, a former student of mine from the Glacier/Island/Storm studio at Columbia's GSAPP, has had his final semester project published on Dezeen. John's intensely detailed images depict "the future headquarters of a fictional company that sells bottled water harvested from dew."

[Image: From An Atmosphere Excavated by John Becker].

He approached the whole thing as a false-historical narrative told through a variety of representational styles; these ranged from stippled and picturesque rural landscapes to yellowing 1960s photography, ending up with both 1990s-style graphic posters and hyper-slick renderings from the year 2074.

The overall story explored vernacular techniques for "harvesting, storing, and distorting the landscape," including harvesting aerial humidity using dew ponds and then bottling that water for market.

Entitled An Atmosphere Excavated, the story starts in 1786 and continues to 2074, when the “dew pond” system has been commercialized by the Ethereal water brand... In order to meet growing demands, a series of dew collecting nets were pioneered by a London based architecture firm—MJB Architects—which allowed for a 25 fold increase in production. Due to peak production vs. bottling time, storage bladders were constructed on the hillside to provide short term storage for water during the process. The Bladders were placed under the surface of the earth to provide protection from the sun, and to retain the water’s desired temperature.

It was a lot of fun talking to John as he put this together—in fact, one of our in-studio conversations inspired a post on BLDGBLOG earlier this year—so it's great to see his project get this exposure. Congrats, John!

Check out his work in more detail over at Dezeen.