Symbolizing the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair theme, “Peace through Understanding,” the Unisphere was designed by landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke to celebrate the space age and represent global interdependence. It is the world’s largest global structure, rising 140 feet and weighing 700,000 pounds. After 20 years of disrepair, the Unisphere’s fountain underwent a $2 million restoration of its pumps, valves and paintwork and re-opened in August of 2010.

The fountain’s circulation, filtration and display systems had deteriorated to a point which justified complete replacement of the infrastructure, but the budget did not allow. After much study and careful evaluation of the options and associated costs, Collado devised a way to abandon the existing filtration system infrastructure, and, by reversing the flow in part of the display system, to re- introduce filtration and chlorination to the fountain. In addition a more effective screening method was developed to handle the massive volume of foreign materials entering the pool, which had contributed to the system’s failure.

By rebuilding rather than replacing the two 7,500 gallons per minute pumps, the engineers were able to reuse the pump room piping, generating significant savings for the project.