Boxes at RainCatcher global headquarters, Malibu, CA

Once the boxes arrived, they needed to be stuffed into duffel bags to be put on a plane bound for Africa.

Sarah Savedra, director of RainCatcher and Mark Armfield, CEO, get busy packing, labeling and moving the bags, ready to leave for their 10,000 mile trip around the world.

Bags packed and Mark Armfield and Jack Rose ready for another successful mission. Even Jon Rose, of Waves for Water, lends a helping hand to the mission, bringing dad and filters to LAX.

The miracle man Jack Rose with his 6 full duffel bags of filters ready for take off from Los Angeles.
10,000 miles and over 40 hours in the air later, all filters safely arrive at their location in Uganda!

More to come soon!

Mark Armfield is the owner of Armfield Design & Construction, Malibu, California.

MALIBU, California. As a boy on a bike, standing at the edge of  Point Dume, gazing towards the blue horizon, Mark realized there was nowhere else to go — “This is it”. Right then he made a vow to love this land and to protect its beauty, and to one day give something back.

Fast forward a few decades and that day is now. After 25 years of working to bring environmental awareness to the construction industry, Mark takes pride in bringing to fruition only those projects that combine extreme beauty and optimum efficiency.

In the push to be environmentally responsible Mark has never forgotten about the very human need for beauty and serenity. The home as sanctuary: This is what the builder tries to create and how the family man tries to live.

Along with many environmentally advanced Malibu homes, Mark’s body of work includes:

• President – Malibu Association of Contractors
• Director of Malibu Chamber of Commerce
• Chairman of Government Affairs / City of Malibu
• Member Malibu City Business Roundtable
• Member City of Malibu Sustainable Building Committee

As a surfer and a builder, Mark gradually became aware of our impact on the quality of the ocean. He has committed himself to learning about what hurts the ocean and what can save the ocean from further harm.

RainCatcher

Beginning at the shore, Mark eventually started looking upstream. This lead him to the sky, to RainCatcher, to Jack Rose. Mark and Jack are studying the effects of the vast runoff from rainfall, through our cities, to the ocean.  Together, right here in Malibu, they are designing prototypes for residential rainwater harvesting and storm-water management. This work is their contribution to future generations of Californians.

California RainCatcher houses will collect and store tens of thousands of gallons of fresh rainwater each year during the rainy season and then use this precious resource for landscaping during the long dry season. By the middle of the century, the fulfillment of this design will cut in half the amount of water Southern California must import every year. See photos of completed
projects in the Central Coast region of California by a landscape design company called Earthcraft Landscape Design.

This is a big, slow process that will yield great dividends a half century from now for everyone in California. But many places in the world need the water from RainCatchers right now, so: In conjunction with their local projects, Mark and Jack are bringing the same rain catching technologies to places like Africa and India so that millions of people worldwide will benefit today by not having to suffer and die from water borne diseases.

From the same Point Dume office where they imagine and construct beautiful and brilliant Malibu homes, Mark and Jack create RainCatchers for schoolhouses in Africa. Current projects include two UN Farm Schools for 700 AIDS orphans in Western Kenya.

Jack Rose, founder of RainCatcher.

Jack Rose, Raincatcher: I grew up along the coast of California with a mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, in my back yard — surfing, climbing, skiing — Living in a place where every year, like clockwork, moisture would float in from the Pacific, hit the Sierra, and drop an abundance of rain and snow. These same mountains would later provide the RainCatcher model for my current work.

If I had to give myself a job description it would be: inventor/explorer/friend.

Jack Rose Design Studio — I design interesting houses in all the hideaway places up and down California. Having grown up in a dry climate, rain falling has always been alluring for me. While living on the north shore of Kauai I began catching and drinking rain. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. A couple years later, while living on the rainy Mendocino coast, I continued catching an abundance of delicious rain. So, one day, while enjoying a glass of water-from-heaven I suddenly realized that over a billion people around the world couldn’t participate in this daily ritual that I take for granted. As a designer I gave myself the challenge to come up with a simple, cheap way for all who are chronically thirsty to receive clean, safe drinking water direct from the sky. RainCatcher was born. The purpose and goal:  H2O 4 Every 1.

Reversal-of-fortune

The value of rain received, rather than rejected, is immeasurable.

Architecture, up until now, is based on the premise that “Water is the enemy” — we must shed it and get rid of it as fast as possible. Residential, commercial, industrial and municipal architects and planners all adhere to this belief.

At the same time, modern culture has been relentless in promoting this attitude. Turn to the weather on radio or TV and we are constantly told: “It’s going to be a bad day”. . . because there’s a chance of rain. And if it isn’t a bad day here we are shown all the places where it is going to be ‘miserable’, because of rain — Boston, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, you name it.

Generations have been taught to fear nature, to loathe the rain, to complain each time the garden gets watered. None of this rings true. As children we loved the rain. When we weren’t inside playing board games and making forts we were outside discovering new lakes where bean fields used to be — building Tom Sawyer rafts and having big adventures.

A primary purpose of RainCatcher is to sing praise and gratitude for weather — to instigate an attitude shift from “rain is bad, lets get rid of it” to “rain is a blessing, lets catch it and treasure it.” When enough of us do this, countless people around the world will experience a Reversal-of-Fortune.  Water is as precious a resource as oil. Instead of tossing it aside, one day we will collect it from the roofs of every home and business structure and put it to good use.

As everyone in Africa knows,  “WATER IS LIFE”. .  .

The purpose and goal of RainCatcher is:  H2O 4 Every 1

Jack Rose and Mark Armfield

Jack Rose, Father Kizito, and Mark Armfield.

Jack Rose and Mark Armfield worked with Father Kizito to bring RainCatchers to his 30 schools in Uganda. As a result of this meeting, arranged by Wendy Lynch, coupled by personal donations from Danielle Light and Lucas Donat, our RainCatcher Uganda project is well under way. Photos soon.

Our goal is a RainCatcher on every school in Uganda.

Thank you to all who share our vision.

We are proposing to do the same with drinking water. From Maui to Nairobi to Santa Monica people will be able to enjoy a local product. And every time they do this, someone less fortunate gets a drink as well. After people become familiar with the taste and quality and environmental positives of harvesting and using rainwater they will then be able to turn their houses into RainCatchers and, with the coming of the next rains, go from being a water consumer to a water producer. RainCatcher households will have cases of their own glass bottles to fill from a tap in their kitchen — and keep a full case in the car at all times — and the empties go through the dishwasher and get refilled.

Simply by turning the umbrella upside down we have already begun the water revolution here in California — with plans to bring bottled rainwater to every corner of the earth. Our first RainCatcher Bottling Plants are being designed right now for sites in the Santa Monica Mountains and Kenya. Already, we have people in other states around the country waiting to become franchise partners. People all around the world are waiting to work with us on this project.

Throughout Africa and India and China it’s a matter of life-and-death.

That’s why we are expanding our efforts now. When it comes to rainwater the cup is neither half empty or half full, its overflowing. With a great sense of joy we are catching and sharing this amazing abundant natural resource.

Jack Rose & Mark Armfield, 2008 — the year of gratitude.