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With the weather heating up and summer right around the corner, we were excited to see this beautiful German water park ^[4] recently showcased on Dezeen ^[5]. Designed by Ooze ^[6] and Marjetica Potrc ^[7], the water-recycling park seeks to appease consumers’ fears about wastewater by putting the treatment process on display. Whether you’re relieving yourself in the toilets perched above the Emscher River or taking a swig from a water fountain above the Rhine-Herne Canal, you’re tapping into the same closed sustainable water system — which draws from the river and canal, rainwater ^[8] and waste water.

Photo by Roman Mensing

Toilet-to-tap water systems ^[9] are still a taboo in the States: it’s just too hard to imagine how waste water could be transformed into water clean enough to put in a glass and drink. This water park in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia showcases the water treatment process through colorful architecture and a great set of eco-features. The design uses a constructed wetlands and a rainwater-harvesting roof to clean the liquid. An on-site community garden also gets its drink from the treatment park.

What better place to put such a park than alongside the notoriously polluted Emscher, which is so toxic it has to be fenced off? Beginning in the late 1800′s, the river was used as a grossly oversimplified waste-water canal. Dubbed “Between the Waters: The Emscher Community Garden ^[10]“, today’s treatment park offers a view of the river lying above the adjacent towns as a result of extensive mining in the area. Even today, the area is heavily industrialized, but since the l990s, the river — which is biologically dead — has begun to recover thanks to a massive renaturation project.

+ Ooze ^[6]

+ Marjetica Potrc ^[7]

Via Dezeen ^[5]

Lead photo by Ooze