“Condensation, Sublimation and Consternation”

by Fin Macrae, 26 Jun 2008

In our last blog we touched on the BTS drainage channel and thought I would write a wee bit about the trials and tribulations of the process…

Running down the length of the street is the drainage channel, which is quite heavily cambered to the centre. Its purpose is very obviously to get rid of surface water and it does this via a series of 7 drainheads. The street is mostly used as a thoroughfare for pedestrians but is also used by traffic for loading purposes.
The channel itself is a three part granite fabrication- a bowl shaped central stone bordered by a sill on either side. Total width is about 1200mm so it means we can work with much larger scale text (about 150mm as opposed to the 35mm we have used in the rest of the Streetscape Project). As well as utilising the stone for further textwork based on watery weather (working with Cauldeen Primary and more on that in another blog) we thought that we would look at designing a bespoke drain cover.

We set about looking at weather and the three states of water (solid, liquid and vapour) so got into things like triple point and sublimation (not all snow melts to water – check it out on the web…). For a while we felt like amateur meteorologists rather than artists but we very quickly came up with a number of ideas which we based on a standard drain cover. This went through a number of refinements before we submitted a few sketches for consideration by the client and steering group. We had rationale a-plenty but had a fair bit of “to-ing and fro-ing” before settling on a design that fitted the brief. So what started of as pure aesthetics evolved over a process of discussion with both the client, the architect, the manufacturer and the contractor into our final functional design. Along the way we have had frustrations and challenges but I think we have learned some more valuable lessons – particularly the art of negotiation!

The drain covers are all cast at Ballantines Iron Foundry in Bo’ness and we have made a couple of trips to see the good people there. It really is an amazing place and it would be
a fantastic study in itself to document the foundry and its people (add that to my list of photography projects…) The foundry covers a large area and includes the patternmakers – a group of highly skilled woodworkers who make the moulds by hand with wood and resin. Vast storage spaces are like Alladin’s Cave – filled with old moulds from Victorian gas works, through to modern day town crests emblazoned on inspection hatches.

The foundry itself is quite an impressive place – a bit like something from Lord of the Rings or a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Darkness, black sand, hot iron, flames, smoke and blackened workers, together with the hiss of steam, clanking of metal and chatter of voices…going through that door at first was like wandering through the gates of Hades! Maybe there should be a sign above the door reading “Abandon Hope, all ye who enter”

Working with these guys, and Willie Neil in particular, has helped us understand a lot more about the practicalities of our design and helped us find a solution to what essentially has to be a load bearing D400 standard piece of street ironwork. We think we have cracked it now (metaphorically speaking – don’t really want cracks on our ironwork…)