windmill – Life In A Word

I love urban plazas where water jets through an array of holes at ground level, creating fountains and arcs at random. Watching kids run and play in the midst of these unpredictable showers brings a smile. It’s also a creative way to cool off. Down in Texas, where it always seems to be hot, they’ve created an entire garden of water, where you can get your feet wet in all sorts of ways. Welcome to Fort Worth’s Water Gardens.

Maybe you don’t think of an outdoor venue as “architecture” but the fact is you don’t need walls and a ceiling to define space. The Water Gardens are a perfect example. This city block oasis pops up (er, down), unexpectedly as you pass through the urban grid of Fort Worth. Most of the park is hidden below street level but you can’t miss the rising mist and symphony of moving water. It’s a celebration of sorts, urging you to join in on the fun. The few photos I share here don’t begin to do it justice.

The Water Gardens challenge my logical brain because there’s no rhyme or reason to their haphazard design. Maybe that’s the point. Wander, gaze, and “soak in” their five acres. The Gardens are a multi-faceted experience of water. Phillip Johnson (one of America’s foremost architects), and John Burgee (a graduate of my own university) designed the Water Gardens to include “… pathways, wayside stops, events, and hideaways to draw out the experience, to convey more of the sense of a Central Park… than its limited acreage would’ve suggested possible.” That may be saying a lot about a little, but consider the Gardens’ offerings:

The “Quiet Pool” sits at the base of twenty-foot walls. Water descends almost silently down the stone from a trough above. Deep in the Gardens by the pool itself, you’re so far below ground level it’s as if the city has somehow been relocated far, far away.

The “Aerated Pool” is a nod to the water jets I mentioned above. Forty nozzles create an “orchard” of water in this smaller pool, the tops of the “trees” reaching back to the ground level of the city above.

The “Mountain” is a series of stepped concrete terraces, descending to a corner of the park removed from the water elements. Sitting on the Mountain is almost like being blindfolded. You can hear the rush of the Water Gardens nearby; you just can’t see them.

The “Active Pool” is the largest and most distinctive feature of the Water Gardens, literally a canyon through which the water streams and falls, terminating in a pool thirty-eight feet below the ground. A series of open steps dares you to descend through the water from top to bottom (check out this video for a sense of the experience). The Active Pool gained notoriety in the final scene of the movie Logan’s Run, as the inhabitants of the dystopian city climb into the outdoors for the very first time.

The major elements of the Water Gardens are tied together by a central plaza, where you can experience everything from one location. But to do so would betray the Gardens’ intent. They’re meant to be a moving experience, much as the water itself rushes, mists, and pools throughout.

Architecture is structured, while landscape is unstructured. Blend the two and the result can be unlike anything you’ve seen before. The Water Gardens beckon you to escape, to wander, to contemplate, and most importantly, to get your feet wet. Will you accept their invitation?

Now for the latest on LEGO Fallingwater…

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LEGO Fallingwater – Update #2 (Read how this project started in Perfect Harmony)

The instruction manual for LEGO Fallingwater includes about ninety pages for the assembly, so I figured I’d divide the build into nine equal parts. In the spirit of today’s topic, I proceeded to “dive in”.

Heaven help me.

You see, the 3,000+ pieces of the LEGO Grand Piano were separated into twenty-one numbered bags. Build one bag at a time – easy-peasy. On the other hand, the 800+ pieces of the LEGO Fallingwater model are separated arbitrarily into nine bags, with no indication of what piece is where. It’s like opening a jigsaw puzzle and realizing every piece looks almost exactly the same.

This scene is even scarier when you click to zoom in…

I took a photo of my desk so you could see how much chaos I created on my first day. Did I open all nine bags in search of pieces? Yes, I did. Did I consider just dumping all of the pieces into a big pile so I could search in one place? Yes (but I was afraid there was good reason they’re separated into nine bags). Did I build part of the model wrong and have to backtrack? Absolutely (and thank goodness for that little orange wrench you see next to the scissors. It came with the LEGO Grand Piano and unsnaps pieces that are snapped together incorrectly).

Ten pages (or 11%, or 49 minutes) into the build, this is what we have. We’re looking at Fallingwater from the same angle as the photo above, only all we’ve got is the lowest perimeter foundation wall and a spill of waterfall and creek emerging from the front corner. Not very exciting. Tune in next Thursday as the construction continues. Now for another nod to Frank Lloyd Wright…

Romeo and Juliet Windmill

For all of his famous residential and commercial projects, Frank Lloyd Wright had plenty of lesser-known designs, such as the Romeo and Juliet Windmill in Wyoming, WI. The tower was commissioned by Wright’s aunts, to pump water to a nearby school where they taught. You might describe its shingle-clad look as quaint but in fact, the design is intentional. The taller piece in the rear (“Romeo”) serves as structural support to counter the prevailing winds of the area. Romeo also contains the mechanics of the windmill and water pump. The cupola-topped octagonal piece in front (“Juliet”) is largely ornamental and softens the look of the tower when observed from further down the hillside. Neither part of the tower can really stand on its own, hence the name “Romeo and Juliet”.

Some content sourced from the website for Fort Worth Parks and Trails, and from Johnson/Burgee: Architecture, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

My wife and I are slowly remodeling our house, a room at a time. First, we took a big plunge and overhauled the kitchen. Then we gutted the master bath. Now we’re thinking about a large deck with indoor/outdoor spaces. But that was before a recent trip to Germany, where we cruised a good stretch of the Rhine. Suddenly “remodeling” takes on a whole new meaning.

Our cruise down the Rhine started in Amsterdam. Bad idea. Amsterdam is loaded with the prettiest little canals and bridges outside of Venice. As we were floating up and down the “city streets” we thought, “let’s put a canal bridge on our property!” But a canal bridge requires a canal, else you get London Bridge in the middle of the Arizona desert. So first we’ll be building a canal.

Our next stop on the Rhine kept us in the Netherlands. We landed briefly in Kinderdjjk, not even a map dot if it wasn’t for some of the most beautiful windmills in the world. Kinderdijk’s windmills not only pump water; they’re houses. We must add a windmill to our remodel list! It would make a unique guest house, and instead of pumping water from our well we’ll just windmill it up to the house from the canal. You know, the canal we just installed so we could put in a canal bridge.

Once our river boat hit Germany, I knew our remodel was entering uncharted territory. In Cologne, we walked through one of the most spectacular cathedrals in the world (seven centuries to complete!) In every Rhine river town we passed there was another cathedral (more likely a church, but over there they all look like cathedrals). Am I saying I need a cathedral on my property? Of course not; the neighbors would consider that a little pompous. But a chapel would be nice. Something to accommodate a steeple and bell tower as elegant as the ones you find in Germany. Wouldn’t it be great – calling the family in at dinnertime? BONG-BONG-BONG!!!

Here’s the other problem with Germany. Castles. Big ones. Little ones. Intact ones and crumbling ones. Wherever you look in the Rhine region, you see postcard-perfect towns with castles at their highest points. I mean, who wouldn’t want a castle on their property, right? The problem is, here in the flatlands east of the Colorado Rockies, a castle would look, well, compromised. You’ve got to have your castle sitting higher than everything else (otherwise, how would you lord over your domain?). Not to mention, castles take centuries to build. I’d like to be alive when my remodel list is finished.

(Side note: my wife showed a disturbing interest in the castle torture chambers and all their nasty devices. Either this is lingering effects of watching “50 Shades of Grey” too many times, or I’m in deep trouble. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on her).

Castles just reminded me about one more thing in Amsterdam. They love their cobbled streets. Sometimes they’re perfectly uniform and flat; other times they’re ankle-busters if you’re not careful. Either way there’s no avoiding the cobbles. So now my driveway needs a remodel too. I watched an Amsterdam-ian working to replace the cobbles on one of the bridges (yes, they cobble those too). It looked like backbreaking work, one heavy stone at a time. But if I’m going to have all my other Rhine region elements, an asphalt driveway just won’t cut it.

In the southwest of Germany, just before the Rhine flows into Switzerland, you make a stop in Bavaria: land of dense fir trees, Black Forest cake, and cuckoo clocks. You’d swear you walked into a fairy tale, with Snow White (or Hansel & Gretel, or a hobbit) emerging from the nearest Tudor-style cottage with a smile and some gingerbread. Fortunately, nothing in Bavaria made it to the remodel list. I suppose we could plant a forest of firs, but that’s just tempting a large-scale fire and we’ve already had enough of those in Colorado.

Also just before Switzerland, the Rhine passes through several locks; those mechanical wonders raising vessels from the lower river on one side to the higher river on the other. There’s nothing like watching a lock do its thing while you’re in the lock. Just when I thought I was done with my remodel list, here come the locks. What a great way to secure my property! Raise the driveway higher than the street; then force my visitors to enter through a lock! On second thought, that’s too much work. I’ll add another castle element instead – a drawbridge over the canal I installed way back in the second paragraph.

If you think my remodel is brazen (i.e. “Dave, do the deck and call it good”), just you wait. My list is not quite complete. Our cruise ended in Switzerland. OMG. I repeat, OMG. How the heck am I going to remodel our property into Little Switzerland? There’s nothing I wouldn’t tap from this Alpine dreamland: the dairy farms (which means a whole herd of dairy cows), the cheese and chocolate, and some of the prettiest, cleanest lakes in the world. I’d even recruit a few of the Swiss themselves (as if they’d rather live in Colorado). Of course, the real problem with recreating Switzerland is those dang gorgeous Alps – snowy caps, grassy meadows, cog railways and all. Building Alps on my property would require ten billion delivery trucks of dirt and I just can’t afford that. I’ll settle for gazing at the distant Colorado Rockies instead.

Come to think of it, gazing at the Colorado Rockies requires a deck. That I can manage. Let’s put my Deutschland delusion to the side and just start with a deck, shall we?

Tag: windmill

Get Your Feet Wet!

Deutschland-ish Improvements