HASKELL (SAN JUAN) PLAZA
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington 1994
San Juan Plaza is a work of art and landscape architecture which begins with a recollection of the wooded ridge, outcrops and greensward formerly occupying its site on the Campus, transmuted through a miniaturization, then abstraction and intensification of the defining landscape of this region: the San Juan Islands and Bellingham Bay. A sea of brick paving flows through an archipelago of islands fabricated of over 300 massive sandstone boulders and earth taken from the excavation of adjacent laboratory buildings. Undulating bands of light-colored brick pavers recall the powerful tidal currents through the Bay and mottled granite pavers represent the stony gray beaches of the Pacific Northwest. A single granite boulder - an anomalous ice age migrator also excavated from the ridge - stands at the center of the composition. Carved from the ridge, a ravine extends up into the plaza, and like the islands, is planted in drifts of native species including Birch, Hemlock, Douglas fir, and Garry oak. We developed this work as a center for the Campus community. Our work recognizes and establishes links with pre-existing elements of the University's outdoor sculpture collection of works by Lloyd Hamrol and Beverly Pepper.