Design is almost always a process of problem solving. Architects, planners, product designers, and artists start with some subject matter and they work to produce a composition that engages the viewer with the subject. A good design is one that evokes a feeling from the user of certainty, as if its solution is meant to be, and that any alternative design would be less effective than the design they are seeing. When my school found itself the recipient of a few hundred pounds of donated concrete, of course we had a concrete design competition. My roommate and I teamed up to join in the fun.

For the concrete competition we designed a bird bath that would hang around our favorite dim sum restaurant. The place had this bizarre arched wall out front that we used as a foundation for our design. The double axel design would took advantage of the centripetal force created by the weight of the birdbath and would cling to the base of the arched wall. A nearby building supplied runoff that would fill the birdbath with fresh water each time it rained and the overflow would help rinse the ground beneath the birdbath. The donated concrete was all gone before we got around to building our design so I overlaid our axonometric sketch onto a photograph of the building to present the idea.