Artist Mary Mattingly has designed a sphere filled with native plants that filter water in a gravity-fed system to mimic New York City's water system.
Named Watershed Core, the installation in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was designed to draw attention to issues around quality, access and privatisation of water in the city.
Watershed Core mimics the geological features of a watershed
Mattingly's sculpture mimics the workings of New York City's drainage basin, which includes aqueducts, reservoirs and tunnels.
It is part of her multiform project Public Water that includes a digital campaign and education initiatives alongside Watershed Core.
A spherical structure makes up the installation
The installation is a 10-foot (three-metre) tall open-air spherical sculpture made from metal supporting restaurant trays filled with native plants. Rainwater is collected by the sculpture, where it is cleaned by the filtration elements of plants, soil, sand, rock and a layer of carbon through a process called phytoremediation.
Rainwater enters through holes in the sculpture
"Watershed Core is a sculpture that describes the geology of parts of New York City's drinking watershed through carbon, soils, rocks and plants," Mattingly told Dezeen.
"The installation filters rainwater for drinking," she continued.

"Water moves through the trays and into the water bottles at the bottom of the sculpture. There is a backup system inside the sculpture where water from Prospect...