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July 14, 1999
By SAM BENNETT
Journal Staff reporter
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Q: How much of your work is public, and how much private?
A: This office works on about 75 percent public projects, and 25 percent private. Of the public projects, there are several categories: parks and rec master planning and design, campus planning and design, urban design and infrastructure design. The last is housing - we work on mostly affordable housing.
Q: What is your design philosophy?
A: Our philosophy is building a community. We like to draw a diagram, where the community is in the center, which appears like the Olympic rings. Project types such as housing, historical preservation and urban design those form the rings around the center. They are separate project types, but they are all interrelated.
Q: What are two projects you're proud of?
A: Certainly, the International Fountain at Seattle Center has been one of our most prestigious projects. For us it was a giant step. The first thing we had to do was renovate the fountain, but keep the historical context. Virginia Anderson [Seattle Center director] was encouraging us to allow the participants to interact with water. Before, they had roped the fountain off during major festivals because it was dangerous to children. To make the fountain more accessible, a 4 percent ramp was designed to allow people and even wheelchairs to access the floor of the fountain. That was the breakthrough in the design. The design approach was to retain the historical nature of the original fountain while upgrading the water and sound features with new technology.
Saddleback Park, a one-acre neighborhood park in Bellevue, features a childrens' play area in a natural setting. |
Q: With so much construction around town, what importance do you place on preserving open space?
The Dupen Fountain at Seattle Center features the original World's Fair sculptures. |
Q: After teaching landscape architecture at the University of Washington for 20 years, why did you leave?
A: I always worked part-time while I was teaching. But when I opened this office, it took so much energy to do that I had to drop teaching. Teaching is my No. 1 love. Hopefully I will sometime in the future be able to go back to it maybe at a private school teaching young children.
Q: How did you become interested in landscape architecture?
Evergreen Park in Bellevue's Lake Hills neighborhood, uses natural materials in the childrens' play area.
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