Magic Carpet Fountain

A piece of sculpture that Jane Sybilla Fordham and I made.
This fountain made from carved thermolite block and covered with Italian glass mosaic, was a public art project commissioned to Jane Sybilla Fordham and me by Brighton Borough Council & McAlpine for a housing development in Brighton

The sculpted form of a carpet thrown over a platform of white marble steps is actually a fountain, albeit a fairly sedate one, rather than flumes of water spraying everywhere this fountain constantly replenishes the shallow pools at the top of the carpet, which then trickle down the folds to be caught and recycled. The fountain was commissioned to provide a focal point for the courtyard of a group of houses and flats and it was felt to be important that the sound of the water would be more of a babbling brook than a small waterfall. The effect is very relaxing, soon after the work was installed it became a regular thing to see people sitting on the steps in the summer, cooling themselves by trailing their hands in the water.

Strangely enough a strong influence on our design for this fountain was playing Tomb Raider on an early PlayStation. The gridded modeling of the games environment seemed to have something mysterious and exotic about it even though the world that Lara Croft negotiated was essentially cubed, rigid and cartoonlike. I think we appreciated that the designers of that game had managed to evoke a sort of neatened up reality, or should that be distressed perfection? Either way it was an interesting challenge arranging a cloth like form so that it had perfect levels, for the water to pool and flow in, not to mention to then carve that soft looking form in stone.