Ciorcal Ceò

Ciorcal Ceò (“kee-ur-kul kyo”, meaning “Fog Circle” in Irish ) is a fog collector and rest point designed for Island landscapes where water is both abundant in the air and scarcely available. Inspired by the vernacular forms of waypoints, bothies, and dry-stone enclosures such as the Irish clochán, it gathers fresh water from mist and fog while offering walkers a moment’s rest in the open landscape.

The project emerges from my encounters with Sherkin Island’s Atlantic conditions. Salt-laden winds, rolling fog banks, and echoes of crashing waves, there seemed to be water everywhere, but nothing available to me. There is an obvious irony in being surrounded by water yet not being able to access any, Ciorcal Ceò turns that paradox into a practical, climate-conscious intervention.

By harvesting moisture from fog, the structure provides a supplementary water source without energy consumption, mechanical pumps, or reliance on mains supply. Its materials are locally sourced and chosen for durability, repairability, and minimal environmental footprint, ensuring the intervention works with the landscape rather than against it. In doing so, it not only offers practical resilience but also invites a cultural shift in how we value and interact with natural resources.

The form combines locally sourced timber poles, fog-harvesting mesh, and a low dry-stone ring wall, creating a semi-porous space that shelters the body from wind while allowing an unbroken connection to the land and sea. Rain or mist condenses on the mesh, channelling into a stone basin which can be gathered with a bottle or scooped up in ones hands.

It acts as a functional water collector that is also a gathering point, a marker, and a home in the landscape. Ciorcal Ceò could evolve into a network of water-harvesting waypoints across coastal and island communities, adapted to local craft and materials, and maintained collectively by those who use them.