Fortunately, we rarely see fire hydrants in use – however, they certainly get in the way when you are riding a bike or parking your car around them, so they are not among the most popular sights in the city. Although they are bright red and big, student drivers or hotshot kids borrowing their parents' car sometimes knock a hydrant down, flooding the entire street. One of the winning projects of Design Terminal's Smart City Lab competition is the "Drinking fountain from a fire hydrant” plan – and now the first of them are already in action around downtown.
We learned about
the project from
hype and hyper : Sarolta Hüttl, Judit Soltész, Zsófi Zétényi, and Zsófia Zoletnik all thought that the city's
fire hydrants should have
an everyday purpose in order to serve the citizens beyond emergency situations. This was a brilliant plan, because there are very few drinking fountains in Budapest –
we know of only a few
places where we can safely get fresh drinking water on a hot summer day.
However,
now we
can see a fire hydrant with an unusual blue extension in front of the Basilica, on the corner of Sas
and
Zrínyi – this is the very first installment
of the project. From the end of September until November, the special hydrants will appear at 11 spots around
the city, with plans
that by next summer, we will be able to enjoy fresh
water at
several locations in Budapest.
