LAS VEGAS, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- CityCenter, Las Vegas unveils five bold new creations from WET, the leading water feature and fountain design firm, based in Los Angeles, CA. WET's designs -- Lumia, Focus, Latisse, Glacia and Halo -- play an integral role in producing an immediate feeling of elegance and surprise throughout CityCenter's grounds.

While WET has a long history with MGM MIRAGE's more animated developments, such as the Fountains of Bellagio and The Mirage Volcano, the company was commissioned to create experiential features in a completely different manner than ever before. CityCenter is a city-within-a-city, and WET's goal was to build water features to complement the development's overall feeling of cutting-edge sophistication.

"We were challenged to create five remarkable and visually groundbreaking features, like nothing we or anyone else has ever created before," says WET CEO, Mark Fuller. "Lumia, Focus, Latisse, Glacia and Halo demonstrate the magic that we can create with nature's elements. With water, ice, light and air we have exploited this magnificent challenge given to us by CityCenter."

CityCenter stressed a desire for world-class features to match the work of its esteemed architects and partners. WET designed and engineered five distinct features to accomplish this goal.

Lumia immediately captivates visitors pulling up to the porte cochere at ARIA Resort & Casino's entrance. Cutting-edge technology is evident in the twisting ribbons and large arcs of streaming water. The splashes are perfectly placed creating bold "water sparks" at their intersections. But the real magic is found in seeing this, the first fountain ever, lit in neon-crashing colors during bright daylight, not just at the expected fall of darkness.

Along the outer entrance circle rises Focus, an expansive, 270-foot-long curved water wall made of highly textured stone. Focus emphasizes the ever-changing, choreographed patterns that effortlessly sweep across the immense length and height of the wall. The all-enveloping water flow creates an ocean-like timbre that calms the area leading to ARIA's lobby.

Entering at the resort's north entrance, Latisse is a series of two-story-high water walls composed purely of thick, textured glass, designed by artist Joel Berman. As the water flows down the backside of the towering glass, it hints at how it would feel to walk under a rippling waterfall. Ushering in new technology, WET designed this feature to be programmable in water flow patterns, while still maintaining an unpredictable quality to its movement.

Crystals, the stunning retail and entertainment district designed by architects Studio Daniel Libeskind and Rockwell Group, houses Glacia and Halo, two cutting-edge features. At the entrance, Glacia "cools" guests with large pillars of carved ice that rise as tall as 15 feet. And "rise" is the operative word, as these columns emerge silently from a pristine pool, ascending slowly upward as immense monoliths of frozen water. As each ice monument rises, it is carved at water level into intricate, three-dimensional patterns. Colored lighting combines with the varied ice clarities -- sometimes crystal clear, sometimes frosty white -- to produce a visual experience that never repeats itself. Grammy winner Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is creating a "tonal poem" to accompany this visual surprise.

Halo materializes as a series of water vortices held captive within clear cylinders that thrust up through the floor. Sloped, as though about to fall, the swirling water appears caught in constant struggle to right itself with its inherent sense of verticality. These swirls of color serve as a main focal point of the atrium. In between stops at Louis Vuitton and Gucci, guests and visitors are free to walk through and touch or embrace this maze of spinning water while staying completely dry. WET's elemental features at CityCenter set the spirit for the sophisticated experience that visitors to this unprecedented destination will enjoy.

About WET

In an increasingly digital world we more than ever crave the authenticity of real human connection. WET unleashes the magic of water and nature's other elements to create shared experiences of movement, light, and emotion that reconnect us with our world, with our senses, and with each other. WET works with developers, architects, leaders and visionaries to create and re-imagine environments for human experiences. Our experiential features are contextually driven, responsive to their environments and the needs and desires of our clients, patrons and visitors. Our creative force of talent ranges from artists to physicists, from architects to choreographers. They imagine each project as if it were WET's first, shaping it to its specific environment and community. WET's involvement in and commitment to each project begins at the moment of conceptualization and remains through life-long maintenance. When you are seeking a people magnet, an attraction that will pull people into your project and pull your project into the spotlight, then seek WET. www.wetdesign.com

About CityCenter

CityCenter is an unprecedented urban metropolis opening in December 2009 on 67 acres between Bellagio and Monte Carlo resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. It is a joint venture between MGM MIRAGE (NYSE: MGM) and Infinity World Development Corp., a subsidiary of Dubai World. CityCenter is a design collaboration between MGM MIRAGE and eight internationally acclaimed architectural firms including Pelli Clarke Pelli, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Helmut Jahn, RV Architecture LLC led by Rafael Vinoly, Foster + Partners*, Studio Daniel Libeskind*, David Rockwell and Rockwell Group, Gensler. At the forefront of sustainability, CityCenter will be one of the world's largest green developments. For more information about CityCenter, please visit www.citycenter.com.

SOURCE WET