Tomorrow, the Columbia Association Board of Directors will consider two fountain designs for Symphony Woods Park prepared by Wesco Fountains on behalf of CA, their engineers and architects. Wesco builds and designs interactive fountains such as the one in downtown Silver Spring and at the Gaylord National Hotel in National Harbor .
This the “Argyle” design.
This is the “Rings” design.
The Rings design apparently accommodates dry uses too.
Whichever concept the board chooses, they’ll first have to seek a variance from the HoCo Health Department, which, according to the drawings, classifies interactive fountains as pools and therefore requires them to be fenced.
That particular fence is noticeably absent in these concept drawings.
Some will likely criticize CA for moving ahead with fountain designs before the nascent corroboration with Howard Hughes is totally fleshed out but that would be a little unfair, to the present CA team. This design contract was likely awarded before the new working relationship with HHC got started.
Sure, CA should have established this cooperation with HHC long before this. That is now water over the dam. If you want to thank anyone for the convoluted path CA took to get where it should have been years ago, see Liz Bobo, Cynthia Coyle, Alan Klein,... for starters.