New European Bauhaus · Aalto University · Helsinki 2026

Water, Life
& Design

A 30-year practice bridging fluid dynamics, wearable fountains, sustainability, and STEAM education — by Yuki Sugihara / ATELIER OPA

Fountain Research · Surface Tension · Water Film · Participation
Löyly Helsinki — sauna on the Baltic Sea shore
NEB Spirit · Löyly Helsinki · 7 March 2026

Discovering NEB in a Helsinki Sauna

On a cold March evening at Löyly Helsinki, I experienced all three states of water at once: Solid — plunging into the icy Baltic through an avanto (ice hole); Gas — enveloped in löyly steam rising from the kiuas (hot stones); Liquid — drinking glass after glass of cool water in between. Around me, young people from Vantaa and Copenhagen leapt together into the sea — Together, lived in a single breath. A former industrial waterfront reimagined as a place of joy — Beauty in the raw landscape. A space where age, language, and background dissolved into shared warmth — the very definition of Inclusive. Löyly, I felt, is the ultimate form of urban acupuncture.

Core Values

Four Pillars of This Research

From an immersive 8-metre Water Dome to a medal worn around a child's neck, the same four values have guided 30 years of fountain design.

01

Sustainability

Water is the world's most urgent shared resource. Designing with water — not against it — cultivates affective connection that no classroom lecture achieves. Future editions: recycled filament & wood CNC.

02

Beauty of Water Film

The water bell (Savart, 1833) remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Sugihara has systematically produced butterfly wings, solar twists, and spiral splashes — discovering a new torsion behavior in laminar sheets.

03

Inclusivity

A 6-year-old and an MIT researcher can play the same Fountain Medal. No electricity, no screen — only tap water, gravity, and surface tension. Age, nationality, and ability become irrelevant.

04

STEAM Education

Science + Technology + Engineering + Art + Mathematics — all present in one object that fits in your palm. The ideal 45-minute classroom tool: make it, measure it, draw it, explain it.

Japanese Water Aesthetics · Lexus Design Award 2013

Water Origami — The Drinking Fountain

A Japanese instinct: fold flat material into form, then let water complete the sculpture.

The Drinking Fountain — Lexus Design Award 2013

The Drinking Fountain · Lexus Design Award 2013 Winner

Cut and bend a transparent plastic sheet into a small nozzle — hold it under a kitchen tap. Instantly, water forms itself into butterfly wings, a spider's web, or a perfect geometric membrane. No pump, no electricity. Just geometry, gravity, and surface tension.

This is 水の折り紙 — Water Origami. The folded sheet controls the flow; the water writes the shape. The same logic that governs origami governs the laminar water bell — a distinctly Japanese way of thinking about water as a medium to be shaped, not simply observed.

"Maximum poetic and impressive effect at minimum cost."

— Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, MoMA

Winner, Lexus Design Award 2013. Cited by MIT MediaLab (HydroMorph, 2014).

Cultural Perspective

Inverting the Fountain Paradigm

Neither Western nor Eastern tradition places the visitor at the centre. Sugihara does.

Western Tradition

Water rises.
Power speaks.

Jets shoot upward. The fountain asserts civic authority. The crowd watches from outside. Bernini, Versailles, Las Vegas.

Japanese Tradition

Water falls.
Time dissolves.

Suikinkutsu, shishi-odoshi, karesansui — water falling is impermanence meditated on, not spectacle performed. The self disappears into the sound.

Sugihara's Paradigm

Water surrounds.
You create.

The visitor holds the nozzle, tilts the medal, and makes the butterfly. The fountain exists only in the act of participation. You are the artist.

Piazza fountain in Milan — Western civic fountain tradition
Milan — the jet fountain as a statement of power and civic pride
Zuiho-in Dokuzatei dry garden, Daitokuji Kyoto — karesansui as frozen water
Zuiho-in, Dokuzatei (Daitokuji, Kyoto) — karesansui as water frozen in stone and time

"水は方円の器に従う — Water takes the shape of its vessel."

Japanese proverb · 方円の器 · The same truth written in the surface tension of every water bell.
Scale Independence

From 8 Metres to 15 Millimetres

The same hydrodynamic phenomenon — a laminar water bell — scales from a city-square dome to a ring on your finger. This scale invariance is the design breakthrough.

Water film scale range — from 8m Water Dome to Fountain Ring
STEAM Education

One Medal, Five Disciplines

The Fountain Medal is a complete STEAM curriculum compressed into a single 3D-printed object. A 45-minute session can move from play to publishable observation.

S

Science

Surface tension, laminar flow, hydraulic jump, Savart's water bell equation

T

Technology

3D printing, CAD/CFD simulation, parametric nozzle design

E

Engineering

Fluid mechanics, pump selection, materials science (recycled filament, silver, wood)

A

Art

Form follows phenomenon — butterfly, sun, koi — the water film is the canvas

M

Mathematics

Navier–Stokes, Bézier curves for nozzle geometry, flow velocity measurements

"A 6-year-old makes a butterfly. An MIT researcher models it with Navier–Stokes equations. The same toy, the same wonder."

— MIT MediaLab independently built HydroMorph (2014) referencing Sugihara's 2013 Drinking Fountain.

Production cost for 3D-printed Fountain Medals is already approaching ¥100 per unit at consumer printer prices. Future iterations using recycled or bio-based materials can make this the world's most affordable STEAM tool for water science.

Fountain Medal players — STEAM in action
Play · Experience · Create

How to Play — Be the Fountain Medalists

Hold the medal under a tap, tilt it gently, and watch water become art. No electricity. No screen. Just you, water, and gravity.

See the Fountain Medalists →
Fountain Medal — Solar water film Fountain Medalists — playing Fountain R&D — Research overview
Water & Culture

What Water Means Across Borders

Every culture has something profound to say about water. The proverbs below — from the countries gathering at NEB — share a remarkable theme: still water runs deep.

🇯🇵
Japanese
明鏡止水
"Meikyō Shisui"

A clear mirror, still water — a perfectly calm, undisturbed mind. The highest state of water wisdom.

🇫🇮
Finnish
"Hiljainen vesi on syvää"

Still water is deep. Quiet people — and quiet water — carry the greatest depth.

🇸🇪
Swedish
"Stilla vatten har djupt botten"

Still water has a deep bottom. Calm on the surface conceals great depth below.

🇸🇮
Slovenian
"Tiha voda bregove dere"

Still water erodes the banks. The quiet force is the lasting one.

🇪🇪
Estonian
"Vaikne vesi ajab veskikivi ümber"

Still water turns the millstone. Patient, persistent, unstoppable.

🇯🇵
Japanese / Universal
"水は低きに流れる"

Water flows to the lowest place. Humility, adaptability — the nature of water is the teacher.

Sustainability Vision

Water as a Democratic Medium

The goal: a ¥100 STEAM tool, printed from recycled plastic or CNC-milled from local wood, that gives every child on earth a direct, beautiful, tactile relationship with water.

Today

  • PLA / resin 3D print, ~¥100/unit
  • Fountain Medal gifted at conferences globally
  • Available in silver (Fountain Ring, cast)
  • Demonstrated in Japan, Italy, USA, Finland

Tomorrow

  • Recycled filament printing, target <¥100/unit
  • CNC-milled wood editions (local material)
  • School curriculum integration (STEAM 45 min)
  • Collaboration with fluid dynamics labs (CFD/OpenFOAM)

"People protect what they love. A child who spent an afternoon making butterflies with tap water has formed a relationship with water that no climate lecture can replicate."

— A, research collaborator, 2026
About the Artist / Researcher

Yuki Sugihara

Pioneer of water film art. Designer, engineer, and educator.

Since 1994, Yuki Sugihara (ATELIER OPA) has investigated the water bell phenomenon — the thin, laminar, self-organizing membrane produced when flowing water strikes a flat disc. Her work spans immersive architectural installation, fine jewellery, educational toys, and fluid dynamics research.

PhD (2001) for the 8-metre walk-in Water Dome. Lexus Design Award 2013. A'Design Award Silver 2016. Featured at Venice, France, and Los Angeles. Works cited by MIT MediaLab.

Watch

Fountain History and Design by Yuki Sugihara

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