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And speaking of public art .. the fat fork by the Cambie Bridge

August 16th, 2009 · 5 Comments

Any of you been wondering about that thing that looks like a giant tubular fork on the east side of the Cambie Bridge, near the Olympic Village? (Perhaps not — you’re probably all so well-informed that you’ll post lengthy messages on my blog giving me the technical specifications of the fat fork and how it compares to fat forks in cities on three other continents.)

Anyway, for the few who are wondering, it is the stack for the district heating system at the Olympic Village, the one that is now going to be run off sewer heat not wood chips as originally planned. It’s been designed to be a kind of public art, David Suzuki-style. It will glow different colours depending on how much energy is being used by the village residents and businesses at any given time. That ought to give everyone pause before they fire up their air conditioners there.

Now all Vancouver needs to continue on its path of being self-labelled coolest city in the world is if we EACH had a thing like that on top of our houses. Then we’d know, by their glowing red tubes, who was running four computers, two televisions, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, the music system and every light in the house all at once.  (Uh-oh, sounds like me.) And then we’d turn them all off and go quietly to bed so that we could glow a virtuous blue-green instead.

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