In 1980, David went to Lesotho in South Africa to supervise the construction of enhanced water supplies to six regional towns.
“The existing water supplies were numerous standpipes which often ran dry in peak demand, not because of lack of source water but because of insufficient pressure. Nevertheless, they generally served the population well.”
“The high-tech engineered solution to this dilemma was to lay new distribution mains and provide fewer standpipes. The villagers now had further to carry their water. But to make matters worse, each standpipe location had four outlets on a square pillar which sat on a meter square pad of concrete. So, the surrounding area would rapidly become a mud pool. Great idea. The moral of this story is that design must be appropriate for the use environment.”
