Client: Downtown Ottumwa Iowa Legacy Foundation
Location: Ottumwa, IA, United States
Completion date: 2018
Artwork budget: $10,000
Project Team
Landscape Design
Genus Landscape Architects, Des Moines Iowa
Grant Funding
Downtown Ottumwa Iowa Legacy
Overview
We turn the knob without hesitation, water, our automatic life force, passes by unseen through little moments of our daily lives, a seemingly mundane interaction with domestic plumbing. This work is a playful exaggeration of plumbing fixture’s inherent sculptural qualities. The fixtures act as a vehicle for transporting the roof line water through the sculptural faucet and into the drain pipe / vessel, and continues downward to provide water for green plantings on-grade.
Goals
The renovation of Ottumwa Iowa's Canteen Alley transformed a non-descript downtown back alley into a pedestrian walkway. The landscape architecture firm Genus, selected 2 artists to integrate public sculpture that would transport rainwater from the roofline to garden spaces below.
Process
The collaboration was a coordinated effort between Genus Landscape architects, Des Moines Iowa, Mueller Studio, Lutsen MN, and the Downtown Ottumwa Legacy Group, to transform the alley into a pedestrian pathway and gathering place
Additional Information
The launching pad for the sculptural plumbing forms stemmed from reclaiming decommissioned ventilation pipe tubing out of 1930s Textile Mill