Image Credit: City of Madison photo. Artwork: Cow – Dairyland Dream, Muskie – Depths of Mendota, Flamingo – Pink on the Hill, Crane – Stillness in the Snow, by Hello Madison (Mira Kim)
When a building is designed with intention, it shows. The Madison Public Market is steps away from opening, but it is already making an impression through its public art, its rainwater harvesting system, and the way the two are connected. Environmental design and artistic expression come together to turn a functional space into something people notice and engage with, rather than simply pass through.
Where Infrastructure Becomes Art
At the Madison Public Market, the connection between design and environment is most visible in its rainwater harvesting system. Rather than hiding the infrastructure, the storage tanks were reimagined as a public artwork by Hello Madison (Mira Kim).
Her series, Cow – Dairyland Dream, Muskie – Depths of Mendota, Flamingo – Pink on the Hill, and Crane – Stillness in the Snow, uses color, pattern, and storytelling to connect the system to the surrounding environment. The tanks are treated as large-scale canvases that contribute to the identity of the space.
Before and after artwork. Image credit (right): City of Madison photo. Artwork: Cow – Dairyland Dream, Muskie – Depths of Mendota, Flamingo – Pink on the Hill, Crane – Stillness in the Snow, by Hello Madison (Mira Kim)
The Engineering Behind the Design
Those cisterns aren’t just decorative. They are the storage backbone of an intentionally developed rainwater harvesting system engineered by Salas O'Brien and installed by Hooper Corporation.
The system collects and stores harvested rainwater in three 6,500-gallon polyethylene tanks, giving the building nearly 20,000 gallons of onsite storage capacity.
The roof runoff is conveyed to a single WFF300 Vortex Filter before being stored in the wrapped poly tanks. An external pump allows the water to be processed through the treatment skid at 30 gallons per minute. The treatment process includes tiered filtration utilizing an automatic self-cleaning filter and 5-micron particulate filter followed by ultraviolet light for disinfection. This sequence ensures safe water to be used for toilet flushing inside the building.
The system is controlled by an RMS 200 Controller which allows communication with the building’s broader automation systems. Actuated valves direct flow between the rain garden and to the building’s flushing fixtures as needed, and a domestic water backup to the day tank keeps supply uninterrupted during dry stretches.
When Systems Become Story
What makes the Madison Public Market compelling is not just that it uses sustainable infrastructure, but that it reveals it.
Rainwater harvesting here is not hidden behind walls or buried underground. It is part of the visual and cultural experience of the building itself. The cisterns become murals, the engineering becomes storytelling, and the infrastructure becomes something the public can actually see and understand.
In doing so, the market reframes what public systems can be. They are no longer just functional necessities working behind the scenes, but active parts of the city’s identity, where art, engineering, and environment meet in the same space.
The rainwater harvesting system at the Madison Public Market was supplied by Rainwater Management Solutions. To learn more about the art and vision behind the space, visit the City of Madison's full project update.