Unexpected ideas that make everyday life work differently.
8 stories · Latest first
On a dry Chilean hillside, a tall mesh panel catches passing fog. The water is already in the air—the trick is giving its tiny droplets somewhere to land.
Alto Patache, Chile · 5 July 2013. Photo: Nicole Saffie / Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile · CC BY-SA 2.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
A qanat can carry groundwater across an arid landscape by gravity. The row of openings above it is a clue to the work hidden below.
Nain area, Isfahan Province, Iran · 21 November 2012. Photo: NAEINSUN · CC BY-SA 3.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
Scotland’s Falkirk Wheel carries boats between two levels of canal. The surprising part is why adding a boat does not upset its balance.
Falkirk, Scotland · July 2008. Photo: J. Miers / (WT-shared) Jtesla16 · CC BY-SA 1.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
At Rani-ki-Vav, a monumental staircase descends into the ground. The elaborate structure began with a practical problem: reaching water.
Rani-ki-Vav, Patan, Gujarat, India · 2006-09-03. Photo: Itsmalay~commonswiki · CC BY-SA 4.0. Source photograph retained without further edits; displayed proportionally.
Sheffield’s paternoster replaces the familiar wait behind closed doors with a moving loop of compartments. Its strangest detail is also its basic design.
Arts Tower, University of Sheffield, UK; top-floor landing · 2013-07-15. Photo: Chemical Engineer · CC BY-SA 3.0. Original photograph, unchanged; displayed proportionally.
Those tall openings belong to a ventilation system. In Yazd, a tower can give moving air a route down into a building.
Dolat Abad Garden, Yazd, Iran · 2016-10-23. Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 4.0. Supplied photograph reproduced without further editing.
The giant dome is only the visible part. Below it, an ice pit helped carry one season’s cold into another.
Yazd province, Iran · 2008-09-25. Photo: Pastaitaken · CC BY-SA 3.0. Commons source version includes background-artifact cleanup by Chiswick Chap in 2016. No further editing by us.
Only the lids peek out of the soil. Underneath, water-filled clay pots do a job usually left to a hose—and the useful part is the wall of the pot.
Ollas among tomato plants, August 2022. Photo: Guitou44 · CC0 1.0. Original image, unchanged.
