DCP-led team to exhibit at EPA sustainable design expo

April 07, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will host the 2009 National Sustainable Design Expo April 18 to 20 on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

As part of the expo, 43 student teams representing 40 universities in 24 states will exhibit their design projects for the EPA’s prestigious annual P3 – People, Prosperity and the Planet – Award competition. The competition, divided into two phases, provides key technical assistance in moving both the developed and developing worlds toward sustainability. The student teams will compete for the competition’s Phase II grants of $75,000 to implement their projects in the field and move them to the marketplace.

Two UF teams received the competition’s $10,000 Phase I grants this year, including the team led by DCP doctoral student Iris Patten. The project, “Water Capture and Filtration System: A Replicable Design Concept for Arid Rural Communities,” proposes a design for a low-tech, low-cost system that improves upon a standard open-pool reservoir design to purify about 2 million gallons of stored rainfall year round in the rural West African village of Sissene. Patten initiated the project after working with Community Building Group Ltd. in Tampa, which built the village’s original reservoir.

Sissene faces a lack of access to water that has led to hunger, poverty, high rates of child and maternal mortality and the spread of infectious diseases. The student design, which relies solely on solar energy and gravity, eliminates most evaporation, installs a system to filter rain and collected water and distributes water for irrigation and household use. With these improvements, residents will no longer have to rely on the underground aquifer to meet their water needs, relieving a significant amount of pressure from the natural environment and providing access to water throughout the year.

The team’s faculty adviser and principal investigator is Joseli Macedo, assistant professor and undergraduate coordinator for the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Other team members include Christen Hutton, John November, Alex Sommer and Robert Weaver. The entire team will be in Washington for the expo.

For more information on the expo, contact Cynthia Nolt-Helms at EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research.