"Water Cube" Not Just Art, Project Aims To Reduce Bottled Water Consumption

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Three Rivers Arts Festival begins Friday, and instead of planning to buy a beverage when you're downtown, why not plan to enjoy a nice, ice-cold beverage for free?

As much as you want, with free refills.

Only catch is, you've got to bring the bottle.

Most people might walk right by the odd-looking, pulsating cube sitting in a plaza at 8th Street and Penn Avenue.

But every now and then, someone savvy walks up and fills up.

It is no mere cube.

It's the "Water Cube," a project by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

On one side, you can fill up your own bottle with chilled still water. On another side, there's chilled sparkling water. And on another, you just drink it there from water fountains, no bottle required.

And if you want to, you can get fancy.

"I don't know that I've ever put sparkling water in a water bottle, it makes me want to bring a wine glass down the street," said one woman.

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Carmen Gentile lives nearby and says he sees it starting to catch on.

"I see people here all the time," he said.

Those showing up with bottles may have read about the cube on Next Pittsburgh, which called the "functional public art" project the first of its kind in the country with a goal of reducing consumption of bottled water.

The Trust's Art Director Emily Balawejder just likes the way it brings some life to a corner of downtown.

"I absolutely love what it's doing for the city," she said. It just feels like an additional fabric that we could use."