Water Walls

office: Acconci Studio

type: competition // public space

location: winnipeg, canada

Water Walls is a design for a fountain competition in the downtown core of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The typical fountain typology is re-evaluated as an occupiable, architectural space where visitors can slip into, and out of a series of capsules enclosed by water walls. The swirling structural caps above are enclosed in glass giving the sense of an extension of space by means of reflection.

“Like cylinders - but not cylinders, not solid surfaces, not walls - ghost-cylinders, wisps of cylinders, walls of water …. Not ‘entering’ but ‘slipping in’, ‘slipping into’, ‘slipping by’, ‘slipping through’ .. You slip in order to go through in order to slip through in order to slip out in order to slip in again …. A maze of capsules … Amaze … You slip into one capsule in order to slip into another in order to slip into another …”

- Vito Acconci