Thinking outside the rain barrel

I can barely remember this city before community gardens. They’re so integral to my neighbourhood, and I don’t even have a plot of my own.

Aside from the obvious benefit of providing people ways to grow their own food, community gardens are also spaces of engagement, contemplation and innovation that attracts people of all ages like bees.

Which is why I was so taken by one Industrial Design student’s final project at Emily Carr University’s grad show last week.

Theunis Snyman has taken on the city-issue rain barrel in a poetic re-think of our weird watering ways in this watery part of the world.

The green poly rain barrel is designed to connect to downspouts to divert 341 litres of water away from the storm sewers for use in outdoor plants and lawns. Trouble is, that system isn’t too useful when it comes to watering community gardens. You could stick one of the rain barrels out there on the land to catch the water directly out of the sky but the downspout hole is too small to collect much rain, and there’s also the problem of overflow.

The South African-born Snyman might just have the answer, in the Utixo Kinetic Rain Harvester, named after the Bushman rain god in South Africa. Four petals made from reclaimed materials 

act as funnels for rain into the rain barrel. According to the promotional materials at the show: “as the tank fills, an interior float mechanism closes the petals/leaves to stop the harvesting process. As the rain barrel is drained, the float moves down and pulls open the flower again, ready to receive replenishment.”

No batteries, no high technology, no noise — just a lovely example of sculptural form meeting simple function in this part art installation, part garden innovation. An accompanying image (at left) at the graduation show reveals the sculptural beauty of the enhanced rain barrels in action here in Vancouver.

As if we need another reason to get back to the gardens: