powerpoint proposition describing landscaping possibilities for the phoenix arizona deer valley water treatment plant south wall as envisioned by artist john runnels

1. WATER.WALL.LAND.SCAPES Deer Valley Water Treatment Plant

2. THE GREAT WALL OF DUNLAP AVENUE The Deer Valley Water Treatment Plant wall is the visual landscape of Dunlap Avenue. Artistically, for enhancement purposes, limitations define the expectations. The linear perspective of the wall mimics the desert floor’s powerful horizontality, and in the distance, muscles of mountains undulate with the wall’s vertical façade. Here it is said you cannot compete with the natural landscape.

3. PRIMORDIAL SOUP of PHOENIX PRECAMBRIAN GARDENS Once upon a time, in Precambrian time, about 1700 million years ago, “submarine hot springs erupted, seethed and bubbled” in what is now known as Phoenix.

4. A WORLD OF WATER Humans relationship to water has changed. Today, water is an easy quotidian disposal bereft of its magical & spiritual value. “Divinities of water – the water gods- often appear at the beginning of creation mythologies.” An excellent example can be seen in the Heard Museum, Phoenix Arizona. The “ Emergence Story of the Five Worlds ” is a sand painting by Dineh (Navajo) artist Rosie Yellowhair, depicting the reverence for water as dominating the first world.

5. NATIVE AMERICAN GRID GARDENS “ Before employing irrigation techniques for farming, prehistoric Indians depended on rainwater for their crops. Aerial photographs of the desert southwest reveal traces of prehistoric agriculture on the landscape that are referred to as “grid gardens or waffle gardens.””

6. WAFFLE GARDEN “ They are named because they often appear as either gridded lines on the ground or areas of contiguous squares reminiscent of a breakfast waffle. Often the lines are formed by stones that prehistoric farmers apparently gathered and used to outline or surround their rectangular growing plots or gardens. Theories on how prehistoric grid and waffle worked have emerged from informative experiments and educated guessing. Nevertheless, in aerial views of these landscapes, grid gardens are the first things to “green up” in the spring, and the last to fade brown in the fall, showing that, however they work, they still work.”

7. GOLF.COURSE.GREEN As our society becomes more global and mobile, people tend to carry with them the gardens of their experience. These comfort zone expectations are imported to create a familiar physical and psychological space, such as a pristine green golf course in a desert.

8. LAND.SCAPES GREEN.THEME A green theme would be a predictable method to coloristically and artificially “naturalize” the landscape bed in front of the wall.

9. LAND.SCAPE.BEDS GLASS recycling “ EnviroSCAPE™ Over 40 billion glass bottles are made every year. But 75% of them end up in landfills! Toilets, tubs and sinks also fill our landfills at alarming rates. Glass and porcelain are sustainable, inert and environmentally friendly materials that can be re-used in many ways. EnviroScape recycled glass and porcelain aggregates come in a range of sizes, with virtually no sharp edges . Xeriscape applications encourage mulching to help retain moisture in the soil and reduce water evaporation Glass mulch and porcelain mulch also reduce weeds, moderate soil temperatures, and prevent soil from becoming compacted. Glass mulch does not absorb water like wood mulch, so the water goes where it is intended – into the plants – and even less water is used. Be twice as ‘green’: recycle while you save water!”

10. LAND.SCAPE.BEDS Shown above are 3 design suggestions for the landscape beds in front of the DVWT wall using recycled green glass. Top: all green; middle: value gradations from white to green; bottom: green/white grid pattern.

11. LAND.SCAPE.BEDS Change the color and the meaning is changed. A “virtual river bed” of blue can supplant the familiar landscaped green or beige desert floor in front of the wall. The light responsive blue will give an illusion of a wet space. Using the same blue as the WATER.WALL reflectors will reinforce the “blue zone” and emphasize the water theme of the wall. Above are 3 suggested ideas for color design with blue and white recycled glass.

12. LAND.SCAPES BLUE.GLASS The landscaping will assist in formally demarcating the beginning and end of the WATER.WALL as a conceptual and psychological wet space. Satellite views of the earth reveal a “blue planet” . A color field of colored glass can be presented as a garden landscape. A “virtual river bed” of recycled blue glass can supplant the familiar landscaped green or beige desert floor.

13. LAND.SCAPES Native Plants Native plants will be placed underneath the word “water” to play with the idea of “under water” plants. These desert plants will provide an organic contrast with the man made qualities of the WATER.WALL text and materials. Plant species : Cereus Monstrosus

14. LAND.SCAPES Native Plants “ Desert plants provide intensely colored flowers, unusual shapes and textures, and heady fragrances. They do this despite the great fluctuations in day-to-night temperatures, alkaline soils that lack organic material, minimal rainfall, summer floods, drying winds, and intense sunlight.” Plant species : Bougainvillea, Agave

15. LAND.SCAPES UNDER.WATER.PLANTS The selected water tolerant plants for the “blue zone” of the “dry aquarium” have been researched and chosen for their resemblance to underwater species. The blue shadow of recycled glass pebbles will provide a cool bed for the selected indigenous water tolerant plants. under water plants native desert plants in blue glass

16. LANDSCAPE & LANGUAGE The WATER.WORD language juxtaposed with the WATER.GARDEN landscape is the artists response to Phoenix’s history and culture from the nadir canals of the Hohokams to the zenith downtown skyline. Plant species : Yucca Gloriosa, Eriogonum Jamesii

17. LAND.SCAPES BACK.DROPS The water related text and designs derived from literary and scientific research, combined with the proposed landscaping ideas creates a liquid narrative which is colorful, sensual and eco-sensitive . Plant species : Pigmy Palm

18. LANDSCAPE & LANGUAGE The Deer Valley Water Treatment Plant wall will provide a drive-by desert Garden of Eden of language and landscaping. A sweet symbolic and metaphorical tension will be established between the natural world of the plants and the man made wall of WATER.WORDS. Plant species : Atriplex Hymendlya Saltbush, Desert lavender HyptisEmoryi .

19. LANDSCAPE & LANGUAGE As the community drives by the WATER.WALL. with their windshield perspective, their energy of movement will be briefly converted to a radiance of reflected light with the interpenetration of the natural landscaping with the cultural language. Plant species : Eriogonum Jamesii, Yucca Baccata

20. LANDSCAPE & LANGUAGE The Japanese say: “To love nature, catch it as it changes,” and Thoreau wrote of Walden Pond :” It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, I lived like a dolphin.” Plant species : Fairy Duster, Silver Cassia, Muhlenbergia, Atriplex Hymendlya Saltbush