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New public art at Hillcrest adds more water to very wet area

September 23rd, 2012 · 10 Comments

Almost as soon as the new Hillcrest community centre/pool/rink opened, crews started digging up the land around it extensively. Locals wondered why.

It turned out it was for a new piece of public art, which seems to have reached completion. You can see the official description here.

I’ve heard some question the wisdom of putting a water feature into a piece of land that is already pretty waterlogged as it is, with water running off Little Mountain tending to form bogs below.

Wondering what others think of this particular choice? Love it? Seen it? Hate it?

Knee-jerk comments about corrupt and wasteful city governments blowing taxpayer money on art, any art, will be limited to one. Not one per person. One for this entire thread.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Silly Season

    Does the new water feature have a name? Perhaps your readers could make suggestions here? 🙂 “Eruptions that are seemingly unpredictable and random”? Hmmm. How ’bout the ‘John van Dongen Memorial Geyser’? AKA: Ol’ Unfaithful?

    Anyhoo. Hillcrest is a lovely facility, a show piece, really. One that is already vastly overcrowded. The pool area is especially (insanely) well used at all times of day and night. It. Is. Too. Small.

    I wish they had made the facility bigger, from the start. I’m puzzled as to what they were thinkingat CH when they designed it, especially as staff would have known that the Main Street and Little Mountain areas were undergoing dramatic upzoning and rezoning.

    Don’t know what they will do with regard to accessing this important community amenity once they put 1,200+ new homes on the adjacent land, where the old social housing units used to stand.

  • Andy Jukes

    I love Hillcrest to death; my family is there at least once a week, and I have been watching this construction and wondering what it means for a while.

    I haven’t yet seen it in action, and I’m sure it’s beautiful, but when you break down the jargon, what this thing does is convert clean city water into grey water for the community centre.

    Which is weird.

  • Glissando Remmy

    Thought of The Night

    “Captain Ahab’s Enlarged and Intermittent Prostate Geyser”

    Moby Dick would approve!

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Jacob

    I like it. The artists are right about the random element being great for children. Who hasn’t visited a geyser and hasn’t harboured just a little bit of wonder at the way our world works. Love the idea of a natural aspect to a fountain

    For true hideousness, we only need to venture north a bit to the international village golf-ball-on-tee, whose true value is reminding us that the real issue is we have too much public art that uses home depot’s garden department for inspiration.

  • Raingurl

    I’m confused……Why are they using clean drinking water? I’m very confused.

  • Raingurl

    Oh wait, this is the current city government that touts “GO GREEN” then allows food courts/restaurants to use styrofoam for take out containers. Oxy Moron….s

  • gman

    Raingirl#6
    I would guess it has to do with water quality because kids will be playing in it.If they were to recirculate the water they would have to put some kind of O3 or chlorination unit on it that would require maintenance.Its unlikely there will be enough grey water demand flushing toilets so a lot of water will go down the drain.But you raise a good question and it makes me wonder about all the other waterparks we have now.

  • Raingurl

    gman #7

    As I read your comment I also wondered about the water parks. It was my next question. Exactly what was my daughter (and I and all our friends) playing in when they were children 15 odd years ago…………….

  • Herb Chan

    The geyser only operates when the grey water system needs recharging. So far it has been summertime and there has been very little rain to collect from the roof, but in the winter I expect that the geyser will never go off. Yes, the geyser water is potable. I believe that every grey water system needs a potable water backup for periods of low rainfall.

  • Frank Ducote

    “Knee-jerk comments about corrupt and wasteful city governments blowing taxpayer money on art, any art, will be limited to one. Not one per person. One for this entire thread.”

    Fabula – thanks for this admonition in your blog. Much appreciated.