People say water is the oil of the future, but water is the life of now. In South Africa, I witnessed drought-ridden communities craving water where people have few resources to collect vital rainfall. Inspired by the horned lizard, which thrives in deserts through rain-harvesting with its irrigation-like interscalar skin channels, RainScales marries biomimicry, architecture, and design to collect and conserve water. RainScales involves interlocking brick-like architectural adhesions that create a channel, funneling collected rainwater down the side of buildings into basements where it is then filtered in a small wastewater treatment plant. Architecturally integrated, it is both easy to use and administer, while providing an aesthetically pleasing infrastructure to collect and distribute water and foster self-sustaining communities.
