We’ve got some air that the sneaker companies haven’t yet conquered.  Introducing the Air Spade.

C’mon, the air spade sounds cool already and it’s not even a shoe.  It’s a spade- a real functional tool that looks a little like a weed whacker.  While most regular garden spades have sharp edges, an air spade has wicked pushing power… using only puffs of air.

The air spade also has a very important purpose on the Scioto Mile: root protection.  You may have noticed (and appreciated) the fact that the riverfront is already home to several gorgeous leafy trees. Those trees have roots underground and preserving those nutrient pipelines is a priority- even as the Scioto Mile’s construction team carves paths into the landscape. 

The air spade permits the team to work with surgical precision. An air spade blows away the dirt to reveal tree roots, without snapping them. The roots can then be trimmed around the path to preserve the health of the tree for the long haul.

Sure, a bulldozer can solve a lot of problems in this world, but on the Scioto Mile we’d rather “Just Do It” with an air spade.

At the Scioto Mile, we’ve got some precast structures that are custom-made, one-of-a-kind Scioto Mile Exclusives.

And we call them “steps” and “columns.”  Really, they’re just steps and columns.

Well, not “just” steps and columns.  They’re pretty special.  That’s why precast was the best way to build them.  We love Mother Nature, we truly do . . . but wind and high heat and rain and insects can make it difficult to build something artistic right out on the site.  So, some of the structures are formed off-site and inserted into the landscape with the assistance of big trucks and cranes.

These steps not only complement the design of the Cafe, they will be THE place to sit and enjoy the Fountain

Consider the stair steps on the Scioto Mile. Stairs are part of the band shell and the restaurant, and the steps have custom curves that reflect the design of those structures. Sculpting the slabs also requires extra measures that add texture and enhance the hues. By precasting the steps, the controlled environment makes it easier to achieve ideal results on the first try.

Precast structures can also make use of elements like rock dust to give a certain luminescence to the end product.

The air-conditioned comfort and quality control are a compelling argument for precasting the whole Scioto Mile project. If only there was a way to work out the logistics of transporting a 10,000 pound concrete roof  . . .

This soil will help form the River's Edge.

A big pile of dirt, when exposed to rainfall and other water sources, will wash clean away to nothing.  It’s the same sort of physics that explains where the mulch goes every year- it erodes and washes away.

Although routinely exposed to all sorts of water, riverbanks do NOT wash away.  The green-stuff (trees, plants, grasses) holds soil in place with a busy network of roots.

That said; things currently look a little sparse on the riverbanks by the Scioto Mile.  From all appearances, there’s nothing more than big piles of dirt by the river.  It’s a good thing that there’s a whole lot more going on beneath the surface.

Something special is holding that dirt in place as we speak: geotextiles.

You can figure out lots about geotextiles by looking at the word itself: “geo” is a reference to earth, and “textiles” are woven materials. Geotextile fabrics sit beneath topsoil (the Scioto Mile has two layers of geotextiles) and serve the same purpose as roots –they hold the earth in place.

Structurally speaking, the fabric and the roots have much in common: roots weave together to hold dirt, just as the fibers in the textiles weave together to hold the riverbanks in place.  The Scioto Mile’s green stuff is coming soon too.  Seeding will begin before the end of summer, and the textiles will help keep the seeds from washing away while they germinate.

Heard the ad slogan “Tide’s in, dirt’s out?” With geotextiles, even the Scioto’s highest tides can’t touch our dirt.

Urban landscape designer Keith Myers hopes the community won’t come to view the Scioto Mile riverfront park as an island unto itself.

The park, on track to open along the east bank of the Scioto River next June, is meant to contribute to the whole of downtown Columbus rather than stick out as a singular part, said the principal at MSI Design, the Columbus firm that developed the design for the $44 million project.

“It’s really about creating another piece of the downtown puzzle,” Myers said. “It will be more than whether Scioto Mile is mobbed with people. It’s all part of the fact that a rising tide raises all ships.”

Those other pieces, he said, include the Arena District, Huntington Park, new housing along Front Street, Miranova, Scioto Audubon Park, COSI and the Columbus Commons park under construction on the former City Center mall site.

Blending styles

While Scioto Mile officially stretches from North Bank Park in the Arena District to the Audubon Park on Whittier Peninsula, all the attention is focused on converting a formerly drab section of Civic Center Drive between Broad and Main streets to a vibrant urban park. It’s in that area where nearly all of the $44 million in public and private-sector funding – led by $10 million each from the city of Columbus and American Electric Power Company Inc. – is being spent to create a tree- and fountain-lined boardwalk called the Promenade and overhaul Bicentennial Park, which will feature a massive water fountain, cafe, band shell and amphitheater.

The Scioto Mile design team has worked to pick up some of the architectural flavor of surrounding buildings in various elements of the park, said Darren Meyer, a senior associate at MSI. Examples include using rustic stone and brick in the cafe design and matching the limestone in the columns along the Promenade to masonry materials in the Ohio Supreme Court building along Civic Center Drive.

But Myers said designers also have tried to incorporate some of the modernistic elements seen at Miranova and the new, $60.1 million Main Street bridge over the Scioto.

“This is not an exercise in historic architecture,” Myers said of Scioto Mile. “We had the opportunity to make it more forward-looking than other pieces of downtown. There is a restrained formality we tried to acknowledge, but we still wanted to make it a place where people would want to be.”

It goes back to the goal of making Scioto Mile feel like a piece of the broader downtown, both old and new.

“It’s an evolution of a kaleidoscope of different styles,” Myers said. “That really is what makes a city great in terms of diversity.”

Continuing with the green theme brought to the whole project, developers have torn down a concrete wall that separated the Scioto Mile walkway from the river. It is being replaced by an earthen slope that will extend 25 feet from Civic Center Drive down to the river, adding almost 2 acres to Bicentennial Park and providing access to the water.

Revitalizing the riverfront

The goal is turn the riverfront into a regional attraction, said Amy Taylor, chief operating officer of the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., which is overseeing the project.

“As we looked at the riverfront,” she said, “we saw the community wanted to see a revitalization. We knew we wanted energy and activity. It became a matter of how to get those things.”

One of the basics, Myers said, is to offer people “benches to sit on and comforting shade.” The Promenade, located along Civic Center Drive between Broad and Rich streets, will do that with trees and a stone colonnade that will be dotted with benches, swings, card and chess tables, gardens, bronze fountain sculptures and a water canal for toe-dipping.

Bicentennial Park will be anchored by a fountain that will draw from hundreds of jets of water that can be programmed to make geometric shapes and be used in artistic light projections. It will also have a central pool with a towering jet of water.

The park will include a 2,000-square-foot cafe with seating for 75 indoors and another 75 on a terrace. Its glass design will allow park visitors to look into the cafe and diners to peer out at the fountains and band shell, said Danial Hanes, a 360 Architecture designer who worked on the cafe project. He said the building has environmentally sustainable features such as large canopies for shade on the south and west sides of the building and rooftop solar panels to help power the cafe and fountains.

There’s no scientific barometer for assessing beauty. Nor is there a gauge that will read someone’s level of road-rage.

That said: there are some cold hard facts that help measure the value of urban parks like the Scioto Mile.

According to scientists, your brain functions in two ways: top-down or bottom-up.  When you walk on city streets or work at your job, your brain is doing top-down activity. It’s deluged by mountains of information (jogger/sign/trashcan/STOP signal/donuts/turn), and your mind is busy sifting through all the input to find the important stuff.

All that “top-down” work is exhausting. Literally –with constant stimulation, the brain gets burnout and functions less efficiently.

In natural environments like the Scioto Mile, the brain switches its processors to bottom-up. Without the flurry of urgently competing stimuli, the mind is free to explore its surrounding and marvel at the discoveries.

The switch in processing is so restorative that it’s been the subject of several cognitive studies. It turns out that a visit into nature actually improves your performance at work. The scientists call the process Attention Restoration Therapy.

Unlike so many other forms of healing, Attention Restoration Therapy (abbreviated ART) at the Scioto Mile will be available to all, without an appointment . . . and just steps from Downtown’s busy streets.

Shoot, we knew the Scioto Mile was ART, and now science proves it!

Consider Hot Box. While the urban dictionary staunchly maintains that it’s a room for elicit drug use, our engineering team would beg to differ.  According to them, it’s a water equipment enclosure.

Recently, the team has been engaging in a practice called sheet-piling.  It’s a process whereby you pile (literally) sheets of metal to build a super-sturdy barrier. Sounds odd? Tell that to the North American Sheet Piling Association.

Speaking of piles, that takes us to the pile driver. It is not, contrary to popular belief, properly named for an especially effective professional wrestling move.  Honest, the construction world has first dibs on the term. In fact, the first draft of a medieval pile driver dates back to the fifteenth century.

We can agree that pile driver is the formal name for piece of construction equipment.  Know what it does?  Exactly what its name says: it drives piles (concrete or steel) into the ground to form a foundation for a structure.

As for the other version of pile driver, you won’t see that on the Scioto Mile unless there’s a wrestling exhibition at Bicentennial Park.

Enter the Scioto Mile’s fountain. It’s much more than a water feature; it’s also a glowing celebration of illumination, courtesy of its LED display. There are low voltage underwater fixtures planted all over the fountain.

LED is more than just an acronym (the letters stand for “light-emitting diode”), it’s a technology that was first put into use fifty years ago. Back in the day, red was the only color LED lights could make. The Scioto Mile’s modern fixtures are designed to shine light in any conceivable color. That’s right, any hue you can imagine and a few you never ever thought of: that’s how the modern, energy-efficient LED world works.

This time of year, the lights will be choreographed with the fountain, to play off the water and the fog.

In the wintertime, it’s a whole new ballgame. The glittery LED lights take center stage, and really shine as they bounce amazing colors off of the fountain’s stainless steel halos.

So instead of Christmas in July, the Columbus Scioto Mile will have Independence Day in December.

After all, who wants to be cooped up in a sweaty ol’ gym when we could be outside exercising in the fresh riverside air? 

Sure, the Mile’s not quite ready to host a full-fledged marathon. Still, Fit Club’s fitness guru, Mitch Potterf, has plenty of workout ideas for when the big park makes its debut in June of 2011. 

In fact, he’s created a special preview Scioto Mile Fitness Routine just for our readers.  He suggests a series: five push-ups (you remember those from grade school), followed by ten squats (that’s a little like a knee bend), and then run the length of the Promenade (the Scioto Mile’s grand esplanade that runs from Town to Broad Street).

Sounds easy enough, until Potterf adds, “Do five rounds, for time.”  

It’s a good thing there’s almost a year to get in shape before the Scioto Mile opens.  It’s also a good thing that the Promenade plans call for plenty of benches in the colonnades and cool, moving water canals you can dip your feet in . . . we might need a little break.

Curious about trying the workout for yourself? Check out the video for Potterf’s live coaching at the Scioto Mile site [video].

This steel structure makes the grade.

If you’ve ever had to gift-shop for a cooking snob, you already know this little nugget: when it comes to pots and pans, stainless steel is the Holy Grail. It’s prized for its looks, its durability and its rust-free stability.

For the real metal-head, we add this fact: some stainless steels are more special than others. Consider Grade 316. As a manufacturing site explains, it’s “the standard molybdenum-bearing grade, second in importance to 304 amongst the austenitic stainless steels.”

In case you don’t recall the details from chemistry class in high school, “molybdenum” can be found on the periodic table of elements (it’s #42, right below chromium). The other fancy term, “austenitic” refers to the fact that 316 is a compound metal that involves more than one element.

In other words, grade 316 stainless steel is an engineered metal, and it’s engineered for superior performance. The majestic fountains on the Scioto Mile use this superior metal because it can withstand pressure, hot temperatures, cold temperatures, salt and all sorts of natural conditions and corrosives. Grade 316 stainless steel can weather anything, and last for the ages.

You’ll see Grade 316 stainless steel high-up on the fountains. The special metal comprises the big circles that hold the nozzles. While it’s not officially the “Holy Grail,” the engineers do refer to the spouting circles as “the halos” . . . which sounds like heaven to us.

Granted, it’s two words – so it’s a phrase. The process it describes is odd and unwieldy: the construction team takes a continuous copper wire and wraps it around all the working parts of the Scioto Mile fountains. Though the practice sounds a little strange, the result of this process is nothing short of a scientific miracle.

In wrapping the copper wire, the team is bonding the parts of the fountain together; it’s creating an electrical path. The outcome of this bonding is to bring all the objects to the same potential. Electricity can only flow when there’s a difference in potential, so this practice keeps us all safe on the Scioto Mile.

Teams do the same bonding at public pools. It’s a safety procedure for any water feature, a neutralizer.

Bonus points for knowing the difference between being “bonded” and “grounded”: most of us are more familiar with “grounding” – but that process involves connecting a charge to the earth (literally, the earth’s ground).

Bonding doesn’t require an earth connection – and that makes it a superior safety measure. The ground on the planet earth is a wild card – it changes with the weather (literally, the soil can turn to dust in the summer, and is muddy in the rain).

Bonding relies on the unflinching nature of metal itself. There’s nothing shocking about this process at all.

But the fountains themselves? So electrifyingly gorgeous they’ll send a thrilling little tingle up your spine.