Timeless Impressions: Maya Lin’s, William Hobbs’s and Wayne Pierce’s Platinum Standard Project

Watershaping advanced by leaps and bounds from 1999 through 2004 – a journey of artistry and practicality that was an inspiration to witness. In this retrospective feature, WaterShapes Editor Eric Herman reviews 25 key projects published during that time frame, offering an ongoing resource to watershapers while defining a Platinum Standard for the designers, engineers, builders and artists who use water as their chosen medium.

This unusual composition was designed by world-famous sculptor and architect Maya Lin and executed with the assistance of Hobbs Fountains, her frequent collaborators. Commissioned by the Monroe Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., and called “Ecliptic” by Lin, it consists of two bookended outdoor displays – one an absolute-granite disk draped by a paper-thin flow of water, the other a circular fountain with a fog generator that conjures constantly changing visual effects