Making water dance

Designers are using engineering in the service of art, creating crowd-pleasing fountains and soothing waterscapes. To most people, water is for drinking, washing, and keeping their lawns green. To others, such as surfers, skiers, and snowboarders, it is a playground. But to a relatively small group of designers, water is the medium they sculpt and manipulate into fantastic fountains that are dynamic works of art. Those seemingly simple fountains, however are built on a solid foundation of hydraulic engineering, state-of-the-art pumps, piping, compressors, and, in some cases, patented technologies on par with the most advanced aspects of rocket science. From the simple . . . Some fountains use a single type of hydraulic device, one that generates vertical plumes. Designers then rely on repetition, geometry, and creative lighting to bring it to life. Somerset House in London, for example, was recently transformed from government offices into an Arts Centre. As part of the project, architects from Donald Insall Assoc., turned a one-time parking lot into an interactive fountain, a 5 3 11 grid of water jets set in 45,000 Portuguese granite paving stones. Each of the 11 rows has a dedicated water pump that puts out up to 140 gpm (28 gpm/jet) enough to let each jet climb 16.5 ft into the air. Jets are set about 10 ft apart, far enough that on calm days, pedestrians can thread their way through and only get the bottom of their shoes wet. But on windy days, it can be a different and slightly soggy story. Water is reclaimed and recirculated by a drainage canal surrounding the fountain. It sends water into a 9,500-gallon holding tank where it is filtered, treated with ozone and chlorine, and reused. Typically less than 1% of the water is lost to wind and evaporation on any given