erz were one of three teams selected for the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) Glasgow. Our multidisciplinary team consisted of:

Design Team:
erz ltd
Riccardo Mariano
Alec Finlay – Studio Alec Finlay

Additional Consultants:
Ramboll (Mechanical / Systems Engineers)
Bryan Byrne Consultants (Cost Consultant)
David Narro Associates (Civil & Structural Engineers)
Enviro Centre (Hydrology / Ecology consultant)
Ken Cockburn, Ben Spencer, Dr. Laura Watts, and Andrew Smith

LAGI aims to advance the popular acceptance of clean energy by integrating art and interdisciplinary creative processes into the conception of site-specific, solution-based public art interventions which also function as innovative renewable energy power plants.

The brief for the project was as follows:

What would a utility-scale renewable energy project for Glasgow look like if the design process was led by artists, architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, working in collaboration with engineers? How would such an installation relate to the community?

Our proposal is the Watergaw, a beautiful, neglected Scots word meaning a patch of rainbow in the sky. The Watergaw is a luminous ephemeral artwork whose breathtaking generosity will delight visitors and spectators throughout the city. It is the centerpiece for a system-based scheme of landscape design, energy production, and public artworks that support regeneration at a city and neighbourhood scale.

The LAGI artworks include water-callers, broadcasting river-themed poems from pipes, and wind-callers, recalling Aeolian harps. Together these focus awareness on the energy generating capacity of those familiars of daily Glasgow life—wind and water.

The rainbow artwork, conceived by Riccardo Mariano, is luminous and fleeting. It will come and go as lightly as the weather. The excitement of seeing it light the Glasgow skyline will become an ever-present possibility. Whenever the watergaw appears, it represents 1,000 kWh of energy produced on site—in large part by the windcallers—translating the passage of time into an inspiring measure of renewable energy generation.

The electricity generated will be used both on site and will generate income by exporting to the national grid. The heat that is generated in the water source heat pump will be ‘sold’ to the district heating system, and used in the growing glass. In these ways the watergaw will benefit the local community and the entire city.

The three proposals currently on show at the Lighthouse in Glasgow until the 29th July 2016.

Further information about the LAGI Glasgow project can be found at:

http://www.landartgenerator.org/glasgow/ 

 

Article by: David Hammett