Case studies · Playable water cycle
Minimal Water
The landscape is the display: three levers for rain, heat and consumption, and you see what water means.
What it is
Minimal Water shows the water cycle in twelve landscapes from Hamburg to Lake Constance, on real terrain. Fields bloom or wither, rivers rise or run dry, homes lose their water. It runs at once in the browser: a simplified educational model, not a forecast.
The spark
Water is the resource people think about only when it is missing. Global warming turns that into a question for everyone: why does water come out of the tap, and what do drought and heat do?
The heat lever goes up to +3 °C and a heatwave. With rain the land recovers; a dead forest does not.
What was built with AI
Built with AI, in a short time, in-house:
- twelve water landscapes from OpenStreetMap and an elevation model: terrain, buildings, rivers, treatment plants
- rivers and lakes as one water surface with depth: in a flood, the floodplain and low-lying districts fill up contour by contour
- a landscape that answers: fields wither, forest dies in patches, the reservoir dries out from the shore
- a wheel of eight stations from rain to treatment plant, and a subtitle explaining what is happening
- a tour for museums that moves from region to region and taps the weather presets itself
- a control room for experts: five controls, a 24-hour preview, “What if …”
What only experience decides
In the water cycle, clock, figures and control room are hidden. Instead of numbers there are five values with one word each, from Living to Harvest, and the camera flies to where the effect shows. The control room remains for specialists.
What laypeople see and what they are spared is something no AI knows by itself. It comes from exhibitions in which viewers become part of the image through interaction. And it says what is invented: pipe network, demand and the operation of the reservoirs.
Theses on film
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Case study · Impact4Curator →
Finding, among hundreds of images, the ones that carry an exhibition. -
Case study · Minimal X Interaction →
City models, factory layouts, trade fair stands, learning spaces. -
Case study · Impact4Publish →
The AI writes the text. -
Case study · Sculpt X Interaction →
Phone, joystick, LiDAR scanner – an artwork that several people operate at once. -
Case study · Minimal X Interaction →
Fly over a city, place stones, draw walls.
What a company gains
A water association or a municipal utility can explain drought, heavy rain and reservoirs on its own landscape: in the visitor centre, at school, online.
The basic example runs at once in the browser and shows how quickly this comes together. In the same way we build versions for associations and utilities: their own area, texts and controls, as a web application, a table or a large projection with real valves. Not a control or planning tool.
