We’re delighted that Watershed+ received 2 of this year’s Calgary Mayor’s Urban Design Awards.
Lost Spaces Ideas competition in collaboration with Dtalks received the Conceptual/Theoretical Urban Design Projects
and in the Urban Fragments category, the Forest Lawn Lift station was awarded Honourable mention.
The Watershed+ Lab is a concept that immerses artists within the Watershed+ program, with the intent to support critical thinking, shared knowledge and to bring contemporary artists’ practices into the work of the UEP Department. This issues-based Lab encourages artists to explore and experiment in response to the context of Calgary’s water management system and the city.
The Dynamic Environment Lab includes a funded program week, based in Calgary, providing artists the opportunity to research, learn and then to submit a concept proposal based on the experiences and interactions gained during the time spent in Calgary.
This Lab has grown from previous Watershed+ initiatives – UEP staff laboratories, artist residencies, permanent and temporary projects – aiming to renew and strengthen emotional connections between Calgarians and their watershed.
To learn more about this opportunity please review WATERSHED+ Dynamic Lab call.
Join us this Saturday as we switch on the lights of the newly opened Forest Lawn Lift Station.
Saturday, Sept. 26th, 2015
Forest Lawn Lift Station (1999 26 St. S.E.)
7 – 8:30 p.m.
The Forest Lawn lift station is a Watershed+ initiative integrating artists in the design team for a new lift station from the beginning.
Clad in perforated metal, the modest exterior of the station features a map of LED bar lights, an exact representation to scale of the community’s pipes connected to the station. Responding to live data, the lights change colour revealing the wastewater flow variations as it makes its way to the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Photo Angus MacKenzie
This innovative collaboration between artists, architects and engineers resulted in a lift station that not only features state-of-the-art technology, which provides increased sanitary capacity to northeast Calgary, but also integrates creativity in the rethinking of how infrastructure can become integral and thoughtfully designed elements of our urban realm, drawing attention to the role and complexity of our hidden underground systems.
Artists: Sans façon
Engineers: Associated Engineering
Architect: Marshall Tittemore Architects
Lighting consultant: Nemalux LED lighting
More information here
“Calgary’s concerned citizens, artists, designers, and public officials collaborate to invite humane and environmentally sound ideas to fix the city’s Lost Spaces.”
After the success of the Lost Spaces competition, we are delighted to share that it has been written about in the July-August edition of Metropolis Magazine. To read the article click here.
To read more about the competition please go to d.talks website.
“Design Talks Institute, in partnership with WATERSHED+ and the City of Calgary, developed the Lost Spaces Ideas Competition.
The inaugural Lost Spaces Ideas Competition saw 290 submissions from 40 countries imagine the potential for Calgary’s lost spaces. Creating an inspiring, healthy and green city is often grown out of small actions and a multidisciplinary collaborative approach.”
An article on Broken City Lab’s project was recently published in the Calgary Herald’s Swerve.
To read the article click here
“VARYING PROXIMITIES” was a result of the WATERSHED+ Artist Residency Program, you can still call the Bow River hotline and see the signs along the river pathway.
For more information about VARYING PROXIMITIES please see www.asktheriver.info