Papers and Reports

Although there have been remarkable examples of beautiful design in the water industry, the industry has been among the last to accept the idea that whatever is built should be built attractively. In rapidly growing suburban areas of California there is an increasing pressure to obscure such water structures as tanks and pump stations or for making them an integral part of the residential community. There have been examples in the past of constructing pump stations and buildings that look like residential homes, but this type of camouflage, while not creating an eyesore often fails to enhance the community. These solutions have been either expensive or single purpose in nature. The following articles have outlined a series of solutions and approaches to the design of water facilities that emphasize enhancement of the surroundings. A pumping station can be made a local park or resting place. If subsurface conditions require above-ground structures, these can be done with imagination out of sculptured concrete. Tanks can be blended into the surrounding, either by terracing and planting or by changing the conventional shape.