Tonalea Landmarks and Rippling Waters Bridge Carolyn Law		Print This Page Email This Page

Location

• Nineteen traffic-calming devices in the Tonalea neighborhood at Oak Street and Palm Lane, west of Scottsdale Road
• Pedestrian bridge over the Crosscut Canal at Oak Street, Scottsdale, Arizona

Description

Completed: 2003
Materials: Concrete, pave-crete, aluminum, multi-tone paint, plant materials
Landscape architect: Premier Engineering
Public Art Project Manager: Margaret E. Bruning

Tonalea Landmarks

The Tonalea neighborhood defines itself by a sense of individuality. With well-built homes and neighbors who look out for each other, there is a true sense of community. Working toward the purpose of slowing traffic, maintaining roadway safety and conveying neighborhood charm, artist Carolyn Law (Seattle) designed nineteen medians, roundabouts and bulb outs for Tonalea.

Her artistic palette consists of low, curving, painted walls, ranging in height from five inches to twenty-four inches, forming rhythmic, gestural lines that represent stylized mountains and valleys. Desert-sensitive plants placed within each Tonalea Landmark accentuate color, form and texture. Earth infilled within the low walls furthers the topographical character of the small landscapes. Simple geometric sculptures coated in multi-tone paint appear as bits of water or sky floating in the landscape and add a sparkle both day and night.

Each traffic-calming device is a miniature landscape with its own personality, creating distinctive elements across the neighborhood, acting much like the familiar mountains that we see around town. Motorists and pedestrians, driving or walking through, perceive the splashes of colors, textures, and shapes as moving or undulating—like hills rising, valleys dropping and patterns shifting.

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Rippling Waters Bridge

Rippling Waters Bridge located over the Crosscut Canal on the west side of Tonalea, dramatizes a sense of flow through the neighborhood. The canal crossing is an important access point for school children of Tonalea Middle School and for recreational users along the dirt path. Law’s prismatic pickets, fabricated by Art in Metal (Tempe), create an optical effect of shimmering water and shift color as one walks across, causing a sensory connection to the contents of the channel. Like most water infrastructure in Arizona, canals are slowly outgrowing their identity as unnoticed fixtures in our built environment. Law’s enchanting bridge promotes these waterways as community assets that string together all corners of the Valley.

History

The public art for the Oak Street Pedestrian Bridge and the Tonalea neighborhood went through a lengthy public process for review and approval.

• Oct 2001, first public meeting about public art for the neighborhood
• Nov 2001, artist selected by volunteer panel, which included Tonalea residents
• Dec 2001, focus group held with Tonalea residents to initiate concepts for public art

• March 2002, public feedback about the art concept and wall colors was heard at an open house
• Public Art and Collections Committee (PACC) approved the approved the art concept March 2002

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