UAP

Water Sky Garden | Janet Echelman

A public artwork commissioned for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games has become a permanent art environment for the people of Richmond, Vancouver.

Water Sky Garden by internationally acclaimed artist Janet Echelman was created to activate and reshape the urban airspace surrounding the Richmond Olympic Oval, official venue for the Winter Games speed-skating events. Echelman is well known for her distinctive suspended sculptures that move fluidly with the wind; and this design encompasses not only suspended artwork but every part of the landscape, from the red-stained cedar boardwalks through to water purifying aerators and native plant life.

The collaborative artwork project creates a contemplative art environment that encourages visitors to linger, and simultaneously serves as a wetland treatment pond, providing storm water retention, water quality treatment, and water storage for irrigation use. Water-purifying aerators draw shapes with bubbles on the surface of a pond that collects runoff water from the Ovals’ 5-acre roof, while suspended net-forms undulate overhead in the wind, becoming sky-lanterns during nighttime illumination.

The site-specific concept responds to the local community, which has a high representation of immigrants of Asian descent, by using references such as the choreography of a Dragon Dance in the shape of the boardwalk; and the large scale suspended artwork relates symbolically with the local native Musqueam Band traditional net fishing practices.

This project was managed by the City of Richmond Public Art Program and achieved through Echelman's collaboration with a team of internationally award-winning architects, engineers, lighting and water consultants, landscape architects and fabricators.

PROJECT Water Sky Garden
LOCATION Richmond Olympic Oval, Vancouver, Canada
ARTISTJanet Echelman 
DESIGN TEAM Janet Echelman, artist Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden, architects and urbanistes Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, landscape architecture Fast + Epp, structural engineering Buro Happold, net engineering Peter Heppel Associates, aeronautical engineering Speranza Architecture, consultant Cole Brown Henry Consulting, public art consultants Vince Helton and Associates, fountain mechanical Joseph Scott, lighting design More information: www.echelman.com
COMPLETION June 2009

 
Water Sky Garden at the Richmond Olympic Oval / Painted galvanized steel rings, TENARA® Architectural fiber, red painted cedar, water fountains / Image courtesy Janet Echelman, Inc. photo: Peter Vanderwarker

Water Sky Garden at the Richmond Olympic Oval / Painted galvanized steel rings, TENARA® Architectural fiber, red painted cedar, water fountains / Image courtesy Janet Echelman, Inc. photo: Peter Vanderwarker