Fountain Planter Progress

For my project I decided to make a planter box with a built in fountain. Initially, I planned on doing this project in a natural aesthetic, but I soon changed my mind to do an industrial aesthetic. I decided upon this change as I felt it left more room for a more interesting design that I haven’t seen anywhere. The final design uses a water pump to power the fountain with spots for planting flowers/plants. I planned to use a basin to house the project with plaster to create the industrial aesthetic. I also planned to have the plants growing from cracks in the faux-concrete and the fountain covered by some air ducting. I hope that this will all come together to create a artifact that has a nice juxtaposition of the muted colors from the industrial aesthetic with the bright hues of the flowers to be planted.

So far, the progress I have made is primarily functional, with some aesthetic progress. I began by acquiring a box window planter, water pump, plaster, and clear tubing. I chose the window box planter as it came with a shelf that I could use to hide the internal workings, and act as a water basin. This gave me space to both hold the water, plants, and fountain components in one small, light weight package. This was important as it makes my design portable for moving. At first I planned to use a DIY solar fountain kit, but the units I found had too large of a footprint to fit comfortably in my purchased housing. I then pivoted to looking at aquarium pumps, as they are low cost, filter the water, and are small. I settled on a Sicce Micra Plus aquarium fountain, due to the adjustable flow rate and one foot of pump head, plenty for my application.

I began by filling the planter with water, and attaching the clear plastic tubing to the pump. I then laid out the general layout I wanted for this artifact, and passed the tubing through the plastic cover. Then I began running the pump at different speeds to see where the fountain would reenter the basin, allowing me to hollow a hole there.