Experience
Jeroen designed the pen together with housing and road construction partners, as well as with the Voice of Water, represented by landscape architect Jannemarie de Jonge. According to the Voice of Water, it begins with personal reflection on how one relates to water. But how do you do that? This was the question Jeroen addressed. He is an expert in creating experiences. “It is about the experience you have when you are engaged with something,” he explains. With his design agency Future of Now, Jeroen supports the transition to a sustainable society.
In a transition, it is not about instructing people what they should think, believe or do, Jeroen stresses. “It is about intrinsic motivation.” With Future of Now, he seeks to create meaningful experiences that inspire people to think and feel differently — enabling them to relate in new ways to potential change, such as the water transition. An approach that seamlessly fits the briefing of the Co/Lab The Entire Ocean in a Drop, he adds.
Courage and Responsibility
With the pen, Jeroen wants to bring the beauty of water back into the conversations taking place in boardrooms where construction decisions are made. Without any prior expertise in water systems or management, he engaged with people in the building sector and water authorities. “What struck me was how quickly the conversation turned to cubic metres and litres. It’s a very technical approach to water.”
He also noticed that although there is attention to the water transition and existing solutions, discussions rarely go beyond talk. “But what if it does succeed?” he asked those in the sector. The reply was that often it only takes one person to inspire and mobilise everyone else. That is why he searched for an object through which the user could foster courage and responsibility.
“It takes courage to do things differently,” Jeroen explains. “When you hold the pen, you take responsibility for giving water a place in the construction project. It is not yet a solution — that you develop together. But the pen makes water and its qualities visible. It shows, quite literally, that water is in good hands with you. Hence the name of the design: ‘In Good Hands’.”
Ritual
The Voice of Water adds: “By giving someone something to hold, you create an occasion to talk about it with others.” Jeroen continues: “A pen is something you use daily. Others see you using it. With water in a small sphere on the pen, you also see the qualities of water as you write. When light shines on it, water literally reflects on the paper.”
The sphere can be removed and refilled. “We mainly want people to experience that water is alive, that it wants to move,” says the Voice of Water. Refilling the sphere can even become a kind of ritual, Jeroen adds. “For example, you could use water from the construction site itself.”
When filling the sphere, you can reflect on what you want to contribute to that water. You can express that water is in good hands with you.. Then you assemble the pen again and carry water with you. “The shimmering guides you in your work. Water is watching with you. At a certain point you can let it go and reflect on what you achieved or what went well. It makes ‘care for water’ tangible and experiential, instead of something that only exists in your head.”
More than a Collection of H2O Molecules
“Humans are largely made up of water,” continues the Voice of Water. “People drink me; the food they eat grows through me. I pass through humans and return to the earth. I am the source of life on earth, the carrier of life. I am more than a collection of drops or H2O molecules. I am the core of all processes on earth. Humans cannot control me, forget about it, I do as I please. What matters is that you begin to realise this.”
Through such awareness, intrinsic motivation to collaborate with water emerges, the Voice of Water argues. “Once you realise you are inseparably connected with water, you must find your place within the whole, where you can be a partner to water. Only then, with full awareness, can you study water systems and discover what you must take into account. The pen will support this reflection and journey.”
Creating Flow
A series of 20 pens is being produced, the first of which will be presented to Water Bearers during Dutch Design Week (DDW). The Water Embassy will also launch a website where users of the pen can share their experiences. Once water has been successfully embedded in their work or projects, they will pass the pen on to someone else who wants to learn how to collaborate with water. “By doing this, we want to create a kind of movement, a flow,” says Water Embassy creative director Anouk van der Poll.
Anouk herself notices that when she is working on a project and takes a moment by the Dommel to look at the water, she allows her thoughts to wander. “That’s when ideas come to me that I might not otherwise have had. That’s how I see the pen: a way to help you look at and listen to water with attention.”
An Extra Connection with Water
For Anouk, the pen is a valuable addition to the toolkit of methods already developed, such as the Stem van Water toolkit. She applied this earlier in a construction project by Heijmans in Vught. In two sessions, all construction and water stakeholders worked together with the Stem van Water and toolkit designer Chiara Treglia to develop a vision of water within the project. They stood together on the future building site, feet on the ground. “We looked at how water would want to move through the area. In such processes, the pen could provide a beautiful extra connection with water.”
Since 2018, Anouk has collaborated with the Dommel Water Board, the municipality of Eindhoven and the Province of North Brabant. This partnership was formalised in 2022 with a three-year cooperation agreement. “The first agreement has now ended, and we are working on the next, for five years,” she explains. For Anouk, this demonstrates the strong will to change our relationship with water in a structural way. For the Co/Lab The Entire Ocean in a Drop, Rijkswaterstaat also joined as a partner.
Anouk compares the work of the Water Embassy to the underside of the iceberg. While construction and water parties focus primarily on the visible top — the technical solutions — the Water Embassy addresses the socio-cultural side. “Issues such as use, behaviour, experience and underlying values are central. How do we relate to water? The water transition is largely an inner transition. It is wonderful to explore this through design.”