Passive water harvesting technologies offer clear advantages in terms of power use, but are often limited in output. A new design aims to push them to their limits.

An Italian designer has produced a beautiful tree-like water-catching device that meets the local meteorological, geographical, and social conditions of water-scarce communities in Ethiopia and beyond.

The trend that sees technologies mimic systems or elements found in nature for the purpose of solving our real-life complex problems will not (and should not) cease. Nature is simply mind-boggling and biomimicry can provide design inspirations and techniques to optimise many daily products, like a self-filling water bottle – with help from the Namib Desert beetle.