Essaouira — CI2C 2025

SAWIRA, the autonomous wind-powered public bench, was presented at the 6th International Congress on Climate Change (CI2C – 2025), organized in Essaouira under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI.

The congress, themed “Climate Solutions for a Sustainable Future,” brings together researchers, decision-makers, designers and innovators around a single objective: imagining concrete solutions for a sustainable future. SAWIRA meets this brief. It transforms a local climatic constraint — Essaouira’s permanent wind — into a functional resource for public space.

SAWIRA: Technical Description

SAWIRA is an autonomous public bench that captures wind energy via a silent vertical wind turbine. This energy powers three functions:

1. USB ports. Enable charging of mobile phones, tablets, and portable electronic devices. Directly accessible from the bench.

2. 220V outlets. Provide energy for applications requiring higher power: small tools, professional equipment, event uses.

3. LED lighting. Ensures night visibility of public space. Autonomous, without grid connection. Powered entirely by the wind captured during the day and stored in batteries.

No grid connection. No external energy input. The bench is completely autonomous. It produces what it consumes.

Why Essaouira?

Essaouira is the ideal territory for this project. The city is known for its permanent wind — the Alizé trade wind that blows almost constantly along the Atlantic coast. This wind is both a constraint (it complicates outdoor life, tourism, certain activities) and an untapped resource. SAWIRA transforms this constraint into an asset.

The choice of Essaouira is not only climatic. It is symbolic. Presenting a project that uses the wind of Essaouira to power public space in Essaouira is a statement: local problems can generate local solutions. The territory contains its own answers.

Design as a Climate Response

SAWIRA positions design as a concrete instrument of climate response — not at the level of grand policies, but at the level of everyday public space. The bench is a political object: it makes an argument through its very existence. It says: clean energy can be simple, local, immediately useful.

SAWIRA presented at CI2C 2025, Essaouira — 6th International Congress on Climate Change, under the High Patronage of HM King Mohammed VI.