Water to Water at the Scottsdale Water Campus Paul Edwards & Christine Tanz, Edwards Tanz Collaborative, Inc.		Print This Page Email This Page

Location

In front of the administration building of the Scottsdale Water Campus, 8787 E. Hualapai Drive, Scottsdale, one block north of Union Hills Road & one block west of Pima Road.

For a group tour of the Water Campus call (480) 312-8732.

Introduction

Water to Water is a complex and intricate structure that functions both as a sculpture and a fountain. Visitors find a thought provoking work that celebrates the technology used to sustain human beings living in the Sonoran Desert , which requires an involved system of water treatment and delivery to bring water into our daily life through faucets, shower or sprinklers.

Description

Completed: 1999

Located at the entrance of the Scottsdale Water Campus, Water to Water starts with a perforated metal wall, an abstraction of the kitchen, bathroom and garden walls through which water arrives to us. As people approach the wall, it springs to life. Sensors along the path trigger large shower heads to begin sprinkling one after the other. A small chorus of faucets also joins in. The high-tech water treatment facility, set in the desert, provides an object lesson: one from which we learn that life can flourish in these unlikely surroundings. It shows how our technological adaptations mirror that of the cacti that flourish in the arid surroundings.

Behind the wall, people discover and pass between a network of pipes that feed the water features on the front. Unlike most fountains, this one lets its plumbing show. It heralds the unheralded beauty of the technology.

The pipes rise out of a reservoir which in turn is fed from the stream that is a centerpiece of the facility's landscaping. After the water passes through the various fixtures, it returns to the stream. The sculpture presents a vignette of the complete water cycle—from the sources in nature to its domestication for our use, to its disposal and return to nature.

Using only a small amount of water, the sculpture gives people a variegated experience of water, letting them walk over it on an open grating and through it as it travels in the pipes, letting them hear the sound of it falling and see it splashing in a variety of patterns. Light plays off the stream onto the reflective surface of the wall. The filigree of its perforated-metal skin and uni-strut skeleton creates interesting shadow patterns on the water.

The garden surrounding the wall includes numerous cacti. The special features of these extraordinary plants are adaptations to the excessively dry climate in which they exist. The shapes of the cactus, their ubiquitous needles, the sticky coating on creosote, the tiny leaves of the Palo Verde and the here-today-gone-tomorrow leaves of the ocotillo, all are ways of achieving one goal: to conserve water.

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Artist

Mr. Edwards is a licensed architect with a bachelor's degree from University of Arizona, 1980. In 1990 he received the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CSRI) Design Award. Artist, author and psychologist, Ms. Tanz earned her doctorate and master's degrees in psychology from the University of Chicago . Her bachelor's in history and literature is from Harvard University.

Edwards and Tanz are both residents of Tucson, where they have been active members of the public art and design community. Both were instrumental in stimulating recognition of Tucson 's mural legacy in by writing Art Plan for Metropolitan Tucson . Ms. Tanz also wrote A Guide to Murals in Tucson .

Artists' Philosophy

Based on our direct experience as public artists and our exposure to other projects that we admire and find stimulating, we feel that artist's roles on a design team are many. Artists can solve problems, promote understanding and bring meaning. They can lobby against anonymity and standardization. They can lobby for identity and particularity. They can decorate a wall, constructively shake up standard procedures and be catalysts for aesthetic and conceptual coherence. Artists put energy into cultivating a fresh eye and this can extend into a fresh perspective in general.

In a project like Water to Water, public art should serve not only aesthetically, but scientifically and spiritually as well. This work can contribute to people's understanding of the technology at work in treating water and the larger system of water delivery of which it is a part. Most importantly it can illustrate the inherent life giving elements these structures provide.

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