Jupiter Artland

Jupiter Artland is a sculpture park and art gallery near Wilkieston, West Lothian, where visitors come to explore and engage with contemporary modern art in an outdoor setting. Surrounding the park’s main house are three ornamental water features, which were designed by Arabella Lennox-Boyd: a formal, rectangular pool at the rear, a cruciform pool at the side, and a circular lily pond at the front.

Our main role here was to help realise the design concepts by developing practical means of constructing the pools. For the rectangular pool, this involved coming up with a means of lining the pool whilst still allowing for lights to be fitted, and for the sandstone edge detail. The different sections of the pond also had to be connected with pipework to ensure the uniformity of water clarity and colour in all three of them. Having lined the pools we also installed filtration consisting of a big circulating pump, a UV clarifier to eliminate phytoplankton and a copper dosing unit to combat filamentous algae (blanketweed).

In the cruciform pool, the main challenges resulted from the fact that the filtration had to be a significant distance from the pool, making topping up and water balance difficult. In addition the client did not want to use a liner so the pool was constructed with rendered block and stone and sealed. We also had to keep the water clear and free from filamentous algae and green water, which again meant installing ultra-violet clarifiers and a copper dosing system.

The circular pool was lined and a similar filtration system fitted but with a small single jet fountain.  Finally, we planted the circular and rectangular pools with big lilies.

Jupiter Artland is open May to September each year.  See their website for opening times: https://www.jupiterartland.org/visit