Innovation Zone

UK Construction Week took innovation to a new level at #UKCW2019 with its partnership with the Construction Innovation Hub (the Hub) and the new innovation zone. On a practical front there were a record number of product launches, showcases and demos providing something for all construction professionals regardless of trade.

Disruptors are now present in many different markets, so UKCW is shining a spotlight on the serious change-makers in construction. The aim is to promote productivity, speed, quality, sustainability and social cohesion, showing how innovation can create new value in the industry and stop the short-term, purely cost-driven ‘race to the bottom.

To aid the search for what is genuinely new and valuable, Innovation Zone has been established in partnership with the Construction Innovation Hub – an organisation focused on transforming construction through digital and advanced manufacturing technologies.

The Innovation Zone is a non-sales environment where visitors can explore the new ideas, learn and be inspired.

Studio Sway Aquatecture Panel

SWAY is to move from side to side, to sway between research and design, to sway between the facts of the past and to become the future. Sway is about power, about influence, about guidance. Sway is to refresh and replenish, a renewed opportunity. Sway is neither here nor there; sway is in between the philosopher, the scientist, and the craftsman. Sway is the internode, the space where magic occurs, the space so often overlooked. Sway is the depth.

Product name: Aquatecture

A panel designed to harvest water.

Since the recent drought in her native country South Africa, Shaakira has shifted focus towards using her design work as a response to what she observed in Cape Town in 2018. People’s behavior towards water changed and Day Zero, the day the city’s taps would be shut off was anticipated. The drought in Cape Town has eased up due to some rains, however other parts of the country have experienced bouts of drought and on the other extreme, subsequent flash floods.

Aquatecture is a panel designed to harvest rain water and when integrated with technology, it can harvest moisture from the atmosphere. Aquatecture can be installed as a façade panel on buildings making water harvesting an integrated building feature.

It can also be used to create free standing elements in landscapes, creating water harvesting stations at various nodes throughout cities. Given the dry situation in Cape Town, Shaakira envisioned buildings that could harvest and sustain their own water needs.

Aquatecture is designed to collect falling rainwater as it trickles over the open punctures of the panel. The water that is collected is transported down to a collection tank and pumped back into the building’s grey water system, or stored for later use. Shaakira reimagined a traditional practice like water harvesting, which usually requires space and doesn’t easily fit into the urban aesthetic, into something that is compact and easier for people to engage with. The main goal was to create a water harvester that would fit in dense urban spaces; through its compactness, visual identity and ability to integrate into architecture.