Any of you been wondering about that thing that looks like a giant tubular fork on the east side of the Cambie Bridge, near the Olympic Village? (Perhaps not — you’re probably all so well-informed that you’ll post lengthy messages on my blog giving me the technical specifications of the fat fork and how it compares to fat forks in cities on three other continents.)
Anyway, for the few who are wondering, it is the stack for the district heating system at the Olympic Village, the one that is now going to be run off sewer heat not wood chips as originally planned. It’s been designed to be a kind of public art, David Suzuki-style. It will glow different colours depending on how much energy is being used by the village residents and businesses at any given time. That ought to give everyone pause before they fire up their air conditioners there.
Now all Vancouver needs to continue on its path of being self-labelled coolest city in the world is if we EACH had a thing like that on top of our houses. Then we’d know, by their glowing red tubes, who was running four computers, two televisions, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, the music system and every light in the house all at once. (Uh-oh, sounds like me.) And then we’d turn them all off and go quietly to bed so that we could glow a virtuous blue-green instead.
5 responses so far ↓
1 jimmy olson // Aug 16, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Fat Forks. Sounds like an obscene phrase used by some fat heads i know
2 Joe Just Joe // Aug 16, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Fat Fork? My understanding is it’s supposed to be a female’s hand. The colour changing tips to represent painted finger nails (hence the five fingers).
3 Gassy Jack's Ghost // Aug 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Fat forks or ladyfingers, it sounds pretty cool. I was biking around the OV today and I have to admit, as much as like to bash this project for it’s messy financing and porky politics, it is a very impressive development up close and there are quite a few interesting features, especially along the seawall. It may not turn out to be a bad investment after all for the City…
4 gmgw // Aug 17, 2009 at 1:00 am
Given that the heating system is going to be generating power from what Frances euphemistically refers to as “sewer heat”, I have been trying for some time to get people to refer to this project as the “Hot Shit” solution to SEFC’s energy needs. Any assistance anyone herein can offer in getting this phrase, or some variant thereof, into the common parlance would be much appreciated.
gmgw
5 A. G. Tsakumis // Aug 17, 2009 at 11:14 am
David Suzuki-style hot air???
That’s redundant.
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