Published: June 27, 2008 07:06 am      

SPLISH, SPLASH

Library Commons open for enjoyment

ASHLAND — The Library Commons opened with a splash Thursday.

The splash came when city workers turned on the water in the centerpiece interactive fountain, seconds after Mayor Steve Gilmore stepped away from a podium in its center.

Summer school students from nearby Crabbe Elementary School romped in the fountain while city and library officials and staffers mingled on the commons, an expanse of winding walkways among newly planted trees and shrubs. Benches and tables invite patrons and parkgoers to relax with a book or a lunch.

“It’s the perfect addition from the park to the library,” said library director Debbie Cosper.

The commons is a joint project of the library and the city park board and has been a part of the park’s master plan for close to two decades. Work began in 2006 on the commons, designed as a transition between the library reading garden and the park.

The city provided labor and materials while the library kicked in some funding.

“It has exceeded what I had hoped for,” exulted Gilmore, a longtime member of the park board who pushed to get the commons completed before he leaves office in July to take over as Ashland superintendent of schools. “It’s a wonderful addition to the park, a place to sit, contemplate, read and relax.”

Cosper said one of the first things she noticed about Central Park when she first came to Ashland was its relative lack of places to sit and relax. “Now we have a place to sit ... It’s a people place.”

Also jubilant was landscape architect Kim Jenkins, who designed the commons. “It couldn’t have turned out any better,” she said, watching the children splash about in the fountain.

Jenkins designed the fountain to be interactive. Rather than a raised pool of water, the fountain is more like a rounded extension of the walkway, with a smooth surface patterned into a compass rose. Jets of water squirt intermittently around the perimeter.

The nozzles are fully programmable, and can be set up to spray in sequence, but on Thursday they were set to jet on and off at random, making it a game for children and risky for adults such as Gilmore, who ventured back in clad in his business suit.

“It’s not just to look at, it’s to experience. That’s what makes it interactive,” Jenkins said.

“It was nice to let us run in it and it was so fun to be in that fountain,” said 10-year-old Brandon McClave, one of the Crabbe students.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.