A `SOLDIER FRIENDLY' ENVIRONMENT

A `SOLDIER FRIENDLY' ENVIRONMENT

North Fort Lewis whole barracks renewal

By Jennifer Welputt
Osborn Pacific Group

The campus master plan for North Fort Lewis balances the maintenance and hierarchy issues with quality of life concerns important to the Fort's users: the soldiers. The campus will house over 1,400 personnel and is located on approximately 115 acres.

Creating a "soldier friendly" environment for the troops stationed at North Fort Lewis was essential.

Osborn Pacific Group Inc., together with the Army Corps of Engineers Design Branch, Howard Needles Tammen & Bergandoff, and Whitely Jacobsen & Associates, developed a plan based on these objectives:

Encouraging pedestrian and bicycle circulation.
Reflecting the hierarchical cohesiveness of the Fort Lewis Garrison area through landscape planting design, signage, paving patterns, and pedestrian amenities.
Separating living areas from the everyday working environment.

The final master plan emphasizes a pedestrian-oriented live/work campus. Living quarters, dining facilities, and outdoor recreation spaces are centrally located within the project site, encouraging a sense of community among the soldiers. Work facilities are linked by tree-lined pedestrian boulevards and a
The pedestrian boulevard with battalion company operations facilities (foreground). The barracks can be seen in the background.
linear parade field, providing a spatial separation of the living environment from the working environment and encouraging freedom of movement.

Landscape design features include a hierarchical system of plant materials to define spaces. There is an increase in the percentage and quality of plant materials around buildings as the importance of building use increases.

Indigenous vegetation promotes water conservation, solar gain, and seasonal interest for the North Fort Lewis campus.

Pedestrian amenities such as site furnishings, signage, and the use of paving patterns were also incorporated into the design to define building uses and provide a sense of hierarchy on the North Fort Lewis grounds.

Osborn Pacific Group Inc. also designed interior courtyard spaces at each barracks complex. Barbecue stations, picnic tables, seat walls, and quiet sitting areas provide an outdoor retreat for the soldiers and also promote a sense of ownership of the barracks grounds.

The campus plan was designed as a template for future growth. As the Fort expands, the template will be reused to perpetuate the design theme and maintain design continuity.

The design team was recently awarded with the Society of Military Engineers (SAME) 1996 Design Excellence Award. This is the highest achievement for design recognized by SAME.

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