2023 Summer Issue of Urban Land - 83

of about 15 at Sasaki, as well as 50 consultants,
according to Grove.
Among those outside consultants was
Jim Garland, president, founder, and design
director of Fluidity Design Consultants of Los
Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a consultancy
that specializes in water design.
Sasaki tapped Fluidity to design two fountains,
an engagement that took the firm a
year and a half to complete. The most ambitious
plan involved the design of a 197-foot
(60 m) water wall of megalith-sized chunks
of runway tarmac, each measuring roughly
6.6 by 13.1 feet (2 by 4 m).
" The plan is kind of crescent shaped and
very theatrical, like a stage set, " Garland
explains.
Fountains are more complex than people
realize, according to Garland. " Everybody
likes fountains, but in truth, people don't
know much about them. And when they ask
about them, they generally ask, how big is
the pump? Which is an interesting question,
but to me, it's interesting to look at the fountain
like, why does it look like that? . . . the
actual design and the water action. "
For the Ellinikon crescent, one of the biggest
creative challenges was to find ways to
treat the recycled tarmac so that it " doesn't
look dutiful, but instead looks lively and free
and exciting, " according to Garland.
One of his team's ideas to add liveliness
was to hammer some texture on the tarmac
chunks, " so where the water went over them,
the water would not just be a glassy sheet,
it would go really lively, to whitewater, and
at slow flow rates, it would be a glistening,
streaming thing, and we would pulse the
water, to have a whitewater wave that would
flow over. "
Over the year and a half that Fluidity
worked on the Ellinikon fountains, the idea
for the crescent evolved in other ways, too.
Originally, islands for people to sit on were
planned for the pond in front of the wall,
" but that was traded away, when the simple
beauty of the open reflection pool was
appreciated, " he says. People, though, will still
be integrated into the design, but now on
terraces in and around the tarmac sections.
" It's kind of cool, because you become a
part of the display-all those people are part
of the scene, " Garland says.
A Time to Plant
If you have a millennium to spare, a natural
landscape is no problem. Building one in the
span of a few years, however, is a logistical
challenge. Yannis Nikolopoulos, project director
of Lamda Development, is working to
arrange the growth and delivery of 3.3 million
native plants and 31,287 trees.
To hear Nikolopoulos tell it, the job sounds
straightforward enough: make deals with five
or six large nurseries, then get them to execute
the plan. " It is a process, okay? " he says.
But here, too, there are complexities. For
example, the designers decided to preserve
Sasaki architects are
designing the park with
sustainability in mind:
all 600 acres (243 ha)
will feature local plants
and trees, irrigated
with reclaimed water.
Paths and benches will
be cut from the tarmac
of the old airport.
SUMMER 2023
URBAN LAND
83
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2023 Summer Issue of Urban Land

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