August 7, 2012
More Denver Water
At the beginning of the summer Denver Water asked folks to use less water. While the message seemed to resonate with Denver residents, the summer was long and loaded with record-breaking heat. We knew we needed to give the people some more information. We needed to give them actual ways to use less water. We needed to break out the pinwheels.We managed to get media companies to allow us to install pinwheels on bus shelters, and that was no easy feat. Considering something like this has never been done before in Denver (it's currently not legal to put anything moving on a billboard, or we would have done these there as well), it was a bit tricky getting these things approved. But after much wrangling, we were successful. We built 16 custom bus shelter pieces, and had to manufacture new plexiglass for each one. We then tested and retested hardware to find the best solution for attaining maximum spin. The answer: good ball bearings.Be on the lookout, there's 16 of these spinning, sparkling, shimmering, water-use-recommending bad boys lurking all around Denver. If you can't tell we're pretty excited about them. Please check back soon- we're working on a 'making of' video, replete with footage of the spinning action.Also, the second installment of this 'bring the people ways to save water' mission is the Taller Grass board. We learned that if you let your grass grow just a little longer than you usually would, and you cut it just a little longer than usual, you will actually save water. We knew we should let people know. We maximized as much extension height as possible (this was dictated by the outdoor companies) above the board to help emphasize this point.