A new year to try and re-commit to the bloging experience. Lost a friend over the holidays, rest in peace Bob Shrosbree.
Apparently I have been missing a new fad, fountain diving. Found this and other videos on youtube showing people taking dips in public fountains. Not so much of an issue outdoors, but inside malls it becomes a bit more fun. This one is pretty funny:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Ntm8KH0cU&feature=related
A few months ago I was contacted by a client in New Orleans to look at renovating a historic fountain in West End Park on Lake Ponchartrain. The fountain was built in 1915 by Frederic Darlington and to my knowledge is only one of two still in existance in its original form. I had crossed paths with a Darlington fountain when I first joined EDAW in Ft. Collins, the fountain was located in Denver's City Park and I had an opportunity to see the existing fountain first hand and got to understand how advanced it was for it's time. The Denver fountain was built in 1908 and was automated with changing water displays and colored lighting. While we did not get to complete the renovation of that fountain, it did expose me to the name of Darlington, and at the time there was precious little information available about him to be found on the internet or otherwise. The Denver fountain has since been rennovated and information concerning that work can be found at www.denverelectricfountain.org
Fast forwarding to 2010, after I visited the fountain in New Orleans I again set out to learn a little more about the designer and found that there was much more information available about his work and similar fountains of the time. Darlington's fountains were called Electric Fountains or Prismatic Fountains but when researching them I found reference to many electric fountains in the United States and beyond that I could not attribute to Darlington. I luckily stumbled across Google Books, a project where out of copyright books are scanned by various partners - including many university libraries - and are posted on the net for viewing. The research was tedious, but I started sorting out two names that were prominent in the design and development of these types of fountains around the turn of the century - that is the last century or 1900.
Electric fountains were so named not because of the use of electricity to run them but the use of electricity to illuminate them. Many of the first of these fountains were designed to run the water off of city mains and flushed all of the water through the fountain basin after one use. In later years, pumps were used to recirculate the water. The novel part of the fountains were the color changing lights that at the time were an amazing sight to a society used to dim gas lamps for lighting of streets and candles and oil lamps for general illumination.
The first electric fountain was built in the United States in 1886 at an amusement park on Staten Island and was subsequently moved to Lincoln Park in Chicago. The engineer responsible for the design of the fountain was Luther Stieringer. Luther Stieringer was an assistant to Thomas Edison and was responsible for the first use of lighting for architectural purposes and was the chief engineer of the Colombian Exposition in Chicago of 1894. There were two electric fountains at the Chicago Exposition that drew large crowds for the shows that lasted about an hour. Mr. Stieringer went on to design similar fountains at numerous expositions around the United States and was considered the first Illumination Engineer. In later years, the General Electric company continued to design fountains using electric pumps and lighting.
At the same time that Luther Stieringer was active in designing fountains, Frederic Darlington became known for desiging and advancing the art of electric fountain design. Darlington was best known for his work in electrifying steam and horse drawn trolleys for interurban use. He wrote many papers on the subject during his life. Interestingly, Darlington worked for Westinghouse at the same time Stieringer worked for Edison and it is unknown if Darlington's foray into electric fountains was in direct competition for the same work. One of the interesting facts of Darlington's work with fountains and electric trains was the location of many of his fountains at the end of train lines. This may have been a result of the relocation of the Staten Island fountain to Chicago that was relocated by Charles Yerkes at the end of one of his trolley lines.
Darlington's fountains were found at Schenley Park in Pittsburgh (1893), Willow Grove in Philadelphia (1896), Prospect Park in Brooklyn (1897), Crystal Palace in London (1899), City Park in Denver (1908), Wilson Park in Salem, OR (1912), West End Park in New Orleans (1915) and Garfield Park in Indianapolis (1916). Another fountain attributed to Darlington in Mexico City is mentioned in some articles, but I could not find any further information on it. Darlington established the Electric Fountain Company in Philadelphia during this time and fabricated many of the display jets and appuratus that were used to operate the fountains.
As it turns out, the association of lighting and fountains has other interesting ties, but more on that later .......
I just found a great AEC online course that outlines the use of integral admixtures for waterproofing concrete instead of using membranes. We have been advocating the use of this type of product for the last 10 years or so and this course offers some great information on the use of these types of products including their sustainability and affects on LEEDs ratings.
Check it out at: http://www.aecdaily.com/en/1651851?tabidx=2
There is very little information available about the design of fountain nozzles and most of the data and engineering has been done on the design of fire fighting jets and nozzles with the intent of determining the most efficient method of delivering the most amount of water to a target (the fire). The primary papers dealing with nozzle shape are the following:
Experimental Investigation of Fire Monitors and Nozzles by Hunter Rouse, J.W. Howe and D.E. Metzler 1951
Report of Development Tests on a High Capacity Fire Fighting System: Factors affecting Trajectories of Large Water Jets by Worthington-Simpson Ltd., and Knowsley Engineering Ltd in association with BSRA Technical Services and the University of Manchester.
Nozzle Design for Coherent Water Jet production by MK Jackson and TW Davies
Investigations of a High Performance Water Nozzle by EG Arato, DA Crow and DS Miller. British Hydromechanics Research Association.
This last report is actually the basis of the design of the Captian Cook Fountain in Canberra, Australia
Here is a paper that I found on the web with some excellent reference material:
http://www.gardening-uk.com/waterlands/fountains/index.html
Finding information on fountains is difficult as there is not a central location to learn about fountain design or the combination of architecture and water. Some books have great resources but you have to find them first. Check out our resourse page for some titles.
I am often asked about fountains operating in the winter, and there are instances of fountains designed to do just that. The biggest issue is considering the weight of the ice and making the pool design such that water will be able to circulate.
Here is a link to the Butler Ice Fountain. I use an image of this fountain in presentations showing the ability to have a fountain operate in the winter.
http://www.buffalostate.edu/library/archives/butler.html
I ran across this great web site for images of historic swimming pools. A great resource for images of the way things were.
http://www.ppoa.org/historical_pools.htm
I came across an interesting web site for Isamic star patterns that can be utilized with paving and other detail designs. Here it is:
http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/projects/starpatterns/
For islamic garden design and great images that show fountains here are some of our favorite books:
Gardens of Persia - Penelope Hobhouse
Gardens of Delight - Christa von Hantlemann, Dieter Zoern
Paradise Gardens - Arnaud Maurieres, Eris Ossant
The Art of the Islamic Garden - Emma Clark
Earthly Paradise - Jonas Lehrman
The last one is out of print but I consider it to be one of the best as it has many historical references.
Got an email about fire and water together. There are many ways to do this but there are a couple of things to consider. In a private setting there are not as many concerns with putting the two together. The most simple application is to have a gas line run to the fire element and have the owner open the gas line like a bar-b-que and throw a match in.
In more sofisticated systems and in commercial applications, someone would throw a switch and the flame would come on. For this setup you would need an electronic ignition system and a flame prover. The flame prover heat up when there is flame and keeps the circuit to the gas valve closed. If the flame goes out, the circuit opens and the gas valve closes.
In some applications, the gas is discharged below the water and the flame is on the water's surface. This method is much more complicated as the gas affects the water chemistry.
For applications and ideas, go to www.automatedfireandwater.com
Every so often I get a question about combining fire and water effects. The most common question is about bubbling gas off of water and having the flame burn at the water level. The problem with this setup is that the gas line has to be under the water and the ignition system has to be above the water. Most fire effects require an electronic ignition system that has to stay dry and a flame proving method to make sure that the fire is burning and not just allowing gas to escape. Both of these devices need to stay dry so you will end up with a piece of hardware above the water anyway.
Another problem with emitting gas into the water is the affect that the gas has on the water chemistry. The gas will affect the pH of the water and will have to be monitored in order to keep a body of water in balance.
Ideally, the best bet is to keep the fire and water separate, although you can keep them in close proximity with the right design.
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