WET (Water Entertainment Technologies), also known as WET Design, is a water feature design firm based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 1983 by former Disney Imagineers Mark Fuller, Melanie Simon, and Alan Robinson. WET is best known for its 9-acre (36,000 m2) Fountains of Bellagio[1] in Las Vegas, but the company has also designed over two hundred fountains and architectural water features in many parts of the world.
In addition to its focus on design,[2] WET has pioneered many of the technologies that have since become common in fountains built around the world, by others as well as WET. These technologies include laminar flow fountains, fountains that arise from the pavement instead of from pools, fountains powered by compressed air instead of pumps, and fountains employing sophisticated underwater robots.[3] Hallmarks of WET fountains are that the water itself is the element of interest (no statuary covered by water); there are few if any boundaries between the fountain and viewers; the fountains display novel and surprising water forms not seen in traditional fountains; and many WET fountains take choreographic movement of the individual water elements to a level of precision and variable motion that approaches those of human performers.[4]
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The antecedents of WET can be found in Mark Fuller's undergraduate thesis in Civil Engineering at the University of Utah, for which he developed a large-scale laminar-flow nozzle that went on to be a major element in many of WET’s fountains and water features. After graduating from Stanford University in product design, where he refined his laminar-flow nozzle, Fuller was hired by The Walt Disney Company as an Imagineer. During his time at Disney, he created the “Leapfrog” fountain at Epcot, using laminar technology.
In 1983, Mark Fuller and two coworkers left Disney to found WET. The company’s first major commission was Fountain Place (originally Allied Bank Tower) in Dallas, Texas, a collaboration with landscape architects, Peter Ker Walker and Dan Kiley.
Since then, WET’s collaborations have included Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Pei Cobb Freed & Partners; Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects; SWA Architects; Olin Partnership; Peter Walker and Partners; Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates; and developers Caruso Affiliated and Steve Wynn.
In 2007, WET was asked to participate in the renovations of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.[6]
In 2010, WET was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Mark Fuller discussed the human impact of his fountains and his origins as a fountain engineer.[7]
In 2011, WET was featured in Charles Fishman’s book discussing our cultural and psychological connection to water.[8]
In 2011, NYT correspondent Adam Bryant interviewed Mark Fuller and discussed WET’s unique corporate culture. Focusing on communication, continued education and inter-department synergy, Mark Fuller discusses what makes WET’s infrastructure so unique.[9]