WET Design
Just recently, a business acquaintance suggested I would enjoy a meeting scheduled for a downtown Los Angeles hotel. I figured I'd go because the Museum of Contemporary Art is right down the street and I hadn't been there for a while. So off I went, braving rush-hour traffic, biting hard when I discovered it would cost me nearly $40 to park for the morning and doing my best to
When I prepare my Travelogues, I always spend some time, usually midway through the process, looking at what's available on the Internet to support the basic observations I'm getting ready to offer. Often, for example, I'll confirm information I already have about designers or engineers or installers (and their clients), touching all the bases to get the details right. As important, I'm on the lookout for
I’ve spent a lot of time being happy in the past couple weeks. On the personal side, my wife and I recently welcomed our first grandchild into the family, cradling our oldest daughter’s baby in our arms hours after her birth and flashing back to doing the same with each of our three girls when they, too, emerged freshly into the world. I had no idea what
When the weather cooperates, Seattle is a breathtaking place. I particularly enjoy approaching the city from the water: The skyline is backed by tall mountains and offers lessons in scale, proportion and visual integrity you just don’t get from a typical cityscape. My very first visit to Seattle, however, took place long before I had
It’s not a story I tell very often, but my wife and I spent our honeymoon not in Hawaii, not in Paris, not even at Niagara Falls. No, instead we went to Pittsburgh. We’d scheduled our wedding for August dates without consulting my eastern relations, the principle among them my Aunt Genevieve, my own family’s matriarch and in all ways a formidable woman. As it turned out, she’d scheduled
Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck Tom Cruise Mojo-Rich Pool Water Up for Bids on eBay On the odd chance you have no plans to be in the vicinity of Lourdes anytime soon, not to worry…eBay to the rescue! As of this writing, you may
In December 2004, WaterShapes introduced ‘The Platinum Standard,’ a registry of projects that embodies watershaping…
The plaza island at Columbus Circle in New York is an example of urban and civic design at its best. Encircling the heart of this grand space is a subtle fountain system that has turned a busy traffic hub into a welcome gathering place for the city’s residents and visitors. Here, principal designer Claire Kahn Tuttle of WET Design in Sun Valley, Calif., describes the project and the philosophy the company brought to bear in bringing it to fruition. Tradition has it that, in measuring the distance a place is from New York, the geographical tape measure is placed at the center of Columbus Circle. This makes it easy to see this southwest corner of Manhattan’s Central Park (and the intersection of Broadway, 59th Street and Eighth Avenue) as the true heart of the city. A massive 70-foot obelisk topped by Gaetano Russo’s statue of Christopher Columbus has stood at the center of the bustling traffic circle since 1892, when it was installed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the explorer’s arrival in the Americas. The circle itself was part of Frederick Law Olmsted’s
