Neo — ASHRAO

NEO - VESSEL OF DEAD WATER

Neo is a conceptual exploration of water as both a life-giving resource and a record of environmental neglect. The project centers on a vessel designed to contain "dead water," water that has been polluted, depleted, or rendered incapable of supporting the ecosystems that once depended on it.

The design draws from scientific preservation methods, archaeological artifacts, and speculative futures in which access to clean water is increasingly uncertain. The object exists between product, memorial, and environmental archive, challenging viewers to reconsider their relationship with natural resources and the systems that threaten them.

By combining speculative design with environmental storytelling, NEO uses a simple vessel to communicate a larger narrative about consumption, climate change, and ecological responsibility. The project explores how design can make invisible crises visible, turning an everyday resource into a powerful symbol of both human impact and environmental fragility.

The packaging for NEO: Vessel of Dead Water was created using crushed aluminum cans, transforming a common piece of consumer waste into a material that carries its own environmental narrative. Rather than concealing the packaging process, the project embraces the imperfections, dents, and textures of discarded cans, allowing the material's history to remain visible.

Beyond its symbolic meaning, the use of crushed cans demonstrates how discarded materials can be recontextualized through design. What is typically viewed as waste is elevated into a structural and visual component of the project, challenging assumptions about value, permanence, and sustainability.

By preserving the recognizable identity of the cans while altering their form, the packaging serves as a physical reminder of humanity's relationship with consumption, in which every piece of waste becomes evidence of the systems that produced it.