Fountains
From Wikipedia: "The Moonlight Rainbow Fountain is the world's longest bridge fountain...1,140 meters [1,247 yards] long, shooting out 190 tons of water per minute." Wikipedia also reports that the
Toronto-based Crystal Fountains has designed a dramatic, multifunctional waterfeature for White Square Office Center, a major new commercial development in Moscow. The company describes
In creating waterfalls, some watershapers don’t seem to realize is that you can precisely control the sound the falling water makes as it descends from level to another. My goal in paying attention to this detail is to take advantage of
This lesson involves the performance of a simple but elegant aboveground fountain. As is true of all watershapes, fountains need to be built in such a way that they reliably hold water and don’t leak. That’s an obvious given, of course, but water being the clever devil it is, if you miss
Part I: Setting the Course Theatrical vitality has to do with structuring stories and creating dramatic narratives that establish sensations of expectation, surprise and reward. It also involves the development of sympathetic, interesting characters as well as engagement in “the moment” – the feeling that a special and wonderful entertainment experience is unfolding before the audience in a specific time and place. Mastering all of that is a tall order under ordinary circumstances, so you can imagine how we felt in trying to help make it happen on the exposed, unpredictable stern deck of Oasis of the Seas – a prestigious ship that currently claims the title of world’s largest cruise liner. Fluidity – a Los Angeles-based water design studio – pursues unique, progressive projects for an international clientele that includes architects, landscape architects, civic institutions and real estate developers. Through the years, we’d had considerable experience with theatrical
Decorative-concrete artist Tommy T. Cook has built a reputation for being able to create almost anything from concrete using an array of highly refined and boldly artful processes. In this feature, he demonstrates a portion of that skill by describing how he uses the gargantuan Gunnera plant to craft watershapes in which replicas of the plant’s outsized leaves serve as uniquely natural fountain basins and spillways. Ask anyone who’s tried and it’s almost certain you’ll hear that replicating nature isn’t easy. That hasn’t stopped artists throughout history from trying, however, or from making natural forms an influential source of artistic imagination and ambition. The great thing about using nature for inspiration is that it’s all around us and all we need to do to draw on it is open our eyes, make good choices and decide how what we see can be used in our creative endeavors. In my case, I’d worked in decorative concrete for a long time before nature crawled under my skin. It began when
The warmth and solid heft of aged, cast brass are the hallmarks of the antique rice cooker — a treasure acquired in India several years ago — that now makes a statement to visitors approaching a modern Colorado home's front door. Forged more than 150 years ago using the same techniques employed in making
Through the years, my experience in designing and building naturalistic and architectural watershapes has led me into several situations in which my clients have wanted to use a special heirloom or artifact of some kind as
For years, Montréal’s arts district has been the venue for music and theater performances, art exhibitions, festivals and all manner of cultural events. As part of a revitalization process in the area, notes David L’Heureux, the city recently unveiled the Place des Festivals and a spectacular watershape he and a distinguished design team built at its heart as a gathering place for residents and visitors of all ages and a civic focus for fun, relaxation and visual joy. Throughout North America in recent years, cities have turned to a variety of watershapes to enliven and, occasionally, revitalize their public spaces. These watershapes are more than the wonderful fountains long found in public parks and plazas. Indeed, the recent success of projects including Chicago’s Millennium Park and its ambitious combination of significant waterfeatures with gardens, architecture and art has demonstrated the tremendous potential that lies in crafting interesting, multi-functional places for people to gather. Canada offers a spectacular recent example of this trend in the form of
{Multithumb} When second-generation metalworker and sculptor Kris Kesler wanted to take his custom waterfeatures to a higher, more artistic level, he took off his welding mask and picked up a computer mouse. It’s been liberating, he says, enabling him to design everything from simple scuppers to hurricane-proof fountains and take care of the details that make them work on screen before he puts his hands in gloves and goes at it with hammer and tongs. Growing up in a family of industrial and commercial fabricators, I was steeped from an early age in traditional metalworking techniques – hammering, planishing, leather-sandbag shaping and my favorite, torch welding. Learning at my father’s knee in his commercial steelwork factory led me to admire the artistry of craftspeople as they transformed raw hunks of metal into functional and often beautiful works of art. The power of that experience has always stuck with me. Later in life, when I decided to launch my own water- and fire-feature company, I was excited to get back behind the welding mask and
