REDMOND, WA — The City of Redmond’s Downtown Park Project recently won an Award of Merit from the Washington State Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (WASLA).

The City of Redmond, Washington, has transformed its downtown area over the past six years, and this award-winning park is at the center of it all. The project turned an unruly confluence of busy roads and parking lots into a two-acre park packed with features for the community. GeoEngineers provided geotechnical and environmental services for the project as subconsultant to contractor PFS Studio.

The city’s master plan has been in progress for a long time. GeoEngineers started working on related roadway projects in downtown Redmond about 15 years ago, and construction on Downtown Park itself began in 2016. Park features included a Great Lawn, splash pad, pavilion structure, maintenance building, and minor surface features.

“There’s been just an insane amount of progress in Redmond since we started work on the project,” said Principal Environmental Scientist Tony Orme, who led environmental work for Downtown Park. “The park has become the centerpiece of an entirely new downtown area.”

GeoEngineers' geotechnical team, led by Lindsay Flangas, provided geotechnical recommendations for shallow foundations, slabs-on-grade, below-grade structures, excavation, construction dewatering, and seismic design. The entire Redmond area used to be a bog, so it was not surprising when GeoEngineers found large quantities of compressible peat material during the geotechnical investigation. To avoid settlement problems down the line, the team recommended removing all peat from the site.

Downtown Park’s boggy past meant extra complications for the geotechnical team, but park designers were inspired. They used rolling terrain, organic forms, and natural accents to evoke the area’s marshy history, and a flexible design allows park areas to be used in many ways, depending on the event and time of year.