Advanced Water Treatment Plant
Feedback from Participants
Each key individual involved in the project was asked what was good about it, what was bad and what they learned from the experience.
Tom Buresh, Guthrie+Buresh Architects (architect of Art Team)
Good
- The process and the product could be discussed openly and fully.
- The intense input, the amount of time given to developing the concept and visualisations and the possibility of relying on instinct to resolve the project.
Bad
- The unresolved conflict within the Design Team.
- The project was not built.
Learned
- It was enlightening that motivations and values could be discussed in Team meetings as a serious professional concern, not dismissed as irrelevant.
- The project was in many ways a success.
Steve Estrada, Estrada Land Planning (landscape architect)
Good
- Everyone was involved for the beginning of the project and in all aspects of the project.
- There were no preconceived ideas & he did not know at the beginning what might be possible.
- The artist was well briefed and assertive about his role, and was respected by the engineers. This helped Steve Estrada to have a freer position in the project too.
Bad
- The politics around the project & the design was not presented to a Committee of Council Members, let alone have a chance of being built.
Learned
- The technical process of micro filtration.
- How to make a process creative by asking the right questions & querying, not taking as read, posing abstract questions.
Paul Gagliardo, Metropolitan Waste Water Department, City of San Diego (Client)
Good
- Excellent working process.
- The 30% proposal made a visual statement suitable for extraordinary technology.
Bad
- The organisational structure of the team did not work.
Learned
- To trust his own instincts in developing a project and then giving it away for further development to the right team of people.
- Not to have a preconceived notion or target which has to be validated by the project outcomes.
Gail Goldman, Director of Public Art, Commission for Arts and Culture, City of San Diego (public art advisor)
Good
- The innovative leadership role that the artist was able to assume as Design Team member.
- The willingness - over time - of the team members and client to support an innovative approach to the design and development of a public works facility.
Bad
- An intensive, high maintenance project requiring constant intervention and advocacy in support of the artist and his relationship among the members of the Design Team.
- The uneven talent among the design professionals on the team and the conflicts that ensued.
Learned
- To devote more time at the beginning to define the aesthetic goals of the project and the respective role of each of the members of the design team.
- The project reinforced the extraordinary value an artist can contribute to the built environment given the right opportunity and support.
- Tenacity and commitment on the part of artists and public art administrators can positively change the way people think about and experience public space.
Robert Millar, artist
Good
- The opportunity to select his major collaborator.
- The opportunity to affect the project's creation without preconceptions.
- The opportunity to demonstrate how he might affect the project in a manner that otherwise would not have been imagined.
Bad
- Some Design Team members enthusiastically embraced banality which resulted in a stressful, time-consuming, and frustrating process that often distracted the Team from achieving their potential.
Learned
- Gained considerable experience in communicating with engineers.
- Involvement in the choice of collaborators in projects is essential.
- Better understanding of his potential.
Doug Owen, Project Director, Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Environmental Engineers, Scientists and Planners (Prime Consultant)
Good
- Seeing how to make something which is of value technically also has visual value for the community.
- There is a strong need for the engineering and scientific communities to embrace public art.
Bad
- Managing the different professional goals and objectives of the visual design team (artist, architect and landscape architect).
- Having the project discontinued even though it could provide a renewable water resource for a water short region.
Learned
- Had the opportunity to think about the value of art, architecture and engineering and how they can work together in large public infrastructure projects.
© Copyright Joanna Morland 2003.
