Hilde Performance Center

Location: Plymouth, Minnesota | Client: City of Plymouth | Design team: WSB & Associates| Features: Irrigation Design, Central Control

Hilde Performance Center is one of Plymouth, Minnesota’s defining landmarks. Located a few miles west of downtown Minneapolis, it features a sweeping 45-foot tall open-air facility built for excellent acoustics in an outdoor setting. A glass wall in the back of the band shell allows the audience to view the natural beauty of Plymouth’s woodlands beyond the stage. The grounds also feature an amphitheater with grassy steps built into a hill. Throughout the summer, the Hilde Performance Center hosts a variety of community events and a series of summer concerts known as “Live at the Hilde,” where regional and national acts perform on the open-air stage and smaller groups performing in the more intimate amphitheater. In all, tens of thousands of people visit the Hilde Performance Center each year.

The design of the Hilde Performance Center compliments the beauty of other outdoor built environments on the City of Plymouth’s campus, which include native plantings, ponds, meadows and lush gardens. The Hilde Performance Center features picnic areas, expansive lawn areas, lush plantings and over two dozen of planted urns along the amphitheater terraces. This presented a challenge: how to water each individual urn. Hand watering was not an option.

Water in Motion created a drip irrigation system to water the urns automatically and “invisibly.” As a member of the initial design team, Water in Motion was able to present a solution to be integrated during construction of the site, not as an inconvenient afterthought. Pipes were built into the concrete bases to reach up through the bottoms of the urns. As a consequence, the urns have a clean design with no visible pipes to detract from the aesthetics.

In addition to Phases 1 and 2 of the Hilde Performance Center, Water in Motion designed irrigation for the adjoining Plymouth City Hall campus and the Ice Center-Lifetime Fitness complex. All utilize central control technology for easier irrigation control and maintenance.