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Calvin Abe and Sylvia Tidwell

Floating World

Calvin Abe and Sylvia Tidwell designed Floating World which embraces the elements of water and sky, situated within the surrounding desert. Its focus is a stunning river that flows downstream, skirting its way through the pool-house, between the pools, and ends at the site’s perimeter. Overhead, a “sky” ceiling encompasses the pool-house with pillow-like clouds stationed across the expanse of the interior. The pool area is divided with s-curve benches and a series of enormous blue umbrellas. Each curve of the bench mimics the curvature of the river, which passes across the width of the pool deck. The river itself begins at the pool-house entrance in front and is met by a group of Arizona Jade boulders. The river continues for the entire width of the grounds, where it narrows at the fenced perimeter and ends.

Based on input from a public focus groups, at which many pool users spoke of the buoyancy, lightness and freedom they felt in the water, and of their exaultant and peaceful feelings as they gazed up into the sky, the artist team,Tidwell and Abe, began to think of Eldorado Pool as a refuge of air and water that rises above the desert that surrounds it. The artist team in conjunction with consultants from Versar Inc., an architecture, engineering, and construction company, created a design concept that brings the openness and freedom of water and sky to the new pool complex. The site consists of three main sections

Sylvia Tidwell is a painter and sculptor whose public artwork includes Web, which was reviewed in the national magazineSculpture, along with her completion of a project for the Scottsdale Public Art Program, serving as part of a citywide Sites Around the City: Arts and Environment festival in the Phoenix area, hosted by the Arizona State University Art Museum.

Calvin Abe has worked as a landscape architect since 1979. He then established his own studio Calvin R. Abe Associates in 1987, working on projects and designs dealing with gardens, public plazas and streets, landscape restoration, public and private parks and public housing and transportation. He has installed projects throughout California as well as in China , Korea and The United Arab Emirates. Abe has also completed many site specific environmental installations, one in which was completed in 1999 for the Japanese American Community Culture Center. His designs and installations are completed with the commitment to heal the natural environment and conserve water and energy.

project
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Location2301 N Miller Rd, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

ArtistCalvin Abe and Sylvia Tidwell

DatesCompleted 2003

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