Ecliptic, 2001
Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids, MI

Sponsor: Frey Foundation
Landscape Architect: Quennell Rothschild & Partners
Lighting Design: Tillett Lighting Design Associates
Photography: Ngoc Minh Ngo
Additional Photography: Balthazar Korab

Inspired by the city’s name, the underlying idea of my design for Ecliptic involves the use of water in its three physical states: liquid, solid, and vapor.

There are two circular fountains: one marking the northern entrance and the other marking the southern entrance. The first is a raised granite circle with water continuously flowing from one half and gently cascading over the front half of the fountain. The second is a granite circle set into the ground with a low stone ring that has a hidden mist fountain. This creates a room of mist that you can sit around or step into. The walkway connecting the two fountains is landscaped into gentle, rolling waves of grass expressive of water waves.

At the heart of the park is the amphitheater, with curved seating terraces suggesting the concentric rings formed by a drop of water or the elliptical orbit of planets. In the winter the amphitheater becomes an ice-skating rink. Although water must freeze on a flat, level plane, I consciously sloped the seating surrounding the rink so that when one stands upon this elliptical plane there is an illusion that the surface is tilted.

Embedded into the concrete floor of the amphitheater are fiber-optic points of light that map out the exact location of the stars overhead on January 1, 2000, marking the park’s place in time, marking the passage into the new millennium. These stars are visible year-round, with their light refracting and magnifying under the ice in the winter months. I imagined a still pond reflecting the night sky.