Water in the Green explores the potential of creating a living, innovative and sustainable public drinking fountain for Expo 2020. The project draws conceptually on the historical role of water in the UAE, and how the falaj system was an example of how scarce natural resources can be harnessed to enable both communities and agriculture to thrive.

One of the important functions of the project is to familiarize visitors with the environmental history and flora of the UAE. The design integrates local plants that are common in the UAE’s natural environment and which thrive in its arid climate. Such plants include plants locally referred to as thafra (tephrosia apollinea), harm (salsola imbricata), suwayd (suaeda aegyptiaca), mashary (farsetia aegyptiaca) among many others. These flora, which demonstrate resilience and generosity, as despite their size have had have many historical and cultural functions, reflect the UAE’s relationship to the more unseen aspects of its environment. 

The flora will be irrigated by the water collected from the fountain usage, and as such, the project is continuously living, and when distributed across the site, each starts to develop its own unique identity through growth and coloration throughout the duration of the expo.