As more of the exterior finishes get completed the form of the final building becomes visible. This is particularly noticeable at the project corners, as here at the corner of Queen Anne Avenue and Crockett Street.
The exterior materials have been selected and located to give the building a kind of visual language that explains what’s happening in the interior. The large, black facades have been “framed” by the light tan brick outlines that, along with the corner setback, emphasize the important visual character of the housing. This will be enhanced at the street level by a band of red brick (just starting to be visible – look behind the stop sign on the lower right) which will add as a ‘wrapper’, signaling where the retail shops, including Safeway, are located.
Just up Crockett Street, the scale of the housing along 1st Avenue North gets a different treatment.
Here, the housing above is white, with a strong base of dark brick that wraps the townhouse apartments that anchor the project along First Avenue. Although a little difficult to make out in this view, this is also where the housing levels have multiple set-backs to provide terraces that take advantage of the sunny, south-facing orientation.
The north-east corner of the project features Building A, which houses the leasing and management offices at grade level and creates a strong vertical statement above.
It’s still hard to make out the facade here because of the scaffolding and the fact that it’s proceeding in stages; but it’s clear that it will have distinctive top and bottom floors.
And finally, at Queen Anne Avenue and North Boston Street, the project steps back to provide a recessed corner wrapping around the existing street-level retail.
I suspect that these retail merchants are looking forward to the construction being succeeded by several hundred new resident/shoppers. The general plan is for the new Safeway store to open this fall, followed by the housing next spring.
We left LaVerkin one more time, early enough in the morning to avoid the Zion Park traffic. We were headed for Kanab, a small town near the southern Utah border with Arizona where we would stay before driving to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Here’s a map:
The route takes you past the Zion canyon that we had explored and then up on to a higher part of the landscape. The morning light threw soft highlights on to the rugged landscape.
Since we were essentially travelling east, the light on the stone faces of Zion canyon was striking; and we decided that was a good tourist photo opportunity.
Jane Glass and Mark Spitzer
This east side of the park is served by Zion-Mount Carmel Highway (SR-9), which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel. On the east side of the park, notable park features include Checkerboard Mesa and The East Temple. The tunnel has some unusual features.
SR-9 Tunnel Entrance
For one thing, it’s narrow and therefore one way at a time with traffic controls at each end to allow the directions to alternate. For another, it has windows, here seen from the outside.
And here from the inside (I borrowed this photo – we couldn’t stop in the tunnel)
Zion Tunnel Window
About a mile later we popped out into a higher, dryer landscape, without the constrained forms that we saw the day before, but with its own beautiful shapes. This part of the park is also a ‘drive-by’ experience for most travellers; so it was relatively easy to pull off the road and do some modest exploring (and birding).
Jane checks for birds
The various landscape forms were more varied and we could get closer to them here, as, judging by the footprints, others had also decided.
Upwelling plus erosion equals sculpture
We also found lots of evidence that nighttime can be a busy time in the desert. Here are four sets of footprints (and one boot print) of varying size and spacing. (I’m sure the boot print was a daytime contribution.)
Upwelling with “cairn-type” structures
As is evidenced by these pictures, things do grow in this climate; but we were struck by the fact that so much of it was evergreen, admittedly at a small scale.
A few delicate flowers also got their chance.
But there’s no question that the big impressions were created by the big cone forms.
With a ‘free’ day now in our schedule we decided to drive over to St George, Utah to see the Red Hills Desert Garden. This was in the opposite direction from our hotel in LaVerkin than Zion was, as shown below.
Partial Map of Southern Utah near Zion National Park
In addition, since the various tributaries of the Virgin and Muddy rivers come together in St George, we speculated that there might be some interesting river features there. As you can see on the map, a great deal of this landscape is dramatically exposed rock of many vibrant colors, including one protrusion right behind the garden (below).
Red Rock Landscape
( One element that we found striking was the casual and direct way in which infrastructure has been installed here. It’s both a problem and an opportunity. On the one hand the land is very open, so installing a line of poles is a pretty direct process. But on the other hand, the land is very open, so no matter where you install them they’re an eyesore.)
On the other hand, at least in this instance, the city has been receptive to the idea that people like to get out and experience the landscape that surrounds them. Next to the gardens we were visiting were two parks: Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and Pioneer Park. The Reserve is a 62,000 acre outdoor playground with miles of hiking and cycling trails. It was created for the protection of the Mojave Desert Tortoise and other plants and animals. Pioneer Park on the other hand is a”rock-scrambler’s paradise”, a 52 acre home to hiking trails, slot canyons, picnic areas, etc as well as some of the best views of the city. Two people were enjoying that view while we were in the garden.
Cell phone photo-op
The Red Hills Desert Garden presents a miniature display of the region’s features – both plants and rock formations – for enjoyment and research.
Entry SignEntry area with shelter and office and support facilities
Simple stone structures with metal roofs frame your experience and periodically give you a chance to get out of the hot sun.
The plan forms a series of rooms and paths, interwoven with a small stream.
The stream adds a refreshing quality and clearly references the rivers in St George; but it does seem ironic to find it and the gardens at the top of a spare rock hill, as opposed to down in the valley, somewhere near the actual rivers.
Stream entrance to the garden
As noted in the brochure, “More than 5,000 water-efficient plants are featured in the garden, showcasing the beauty, texture and color of desert landscapes.” To serve one of its other purposes, “Plant identification tags and information on designing, installing and maintaining a beautiful and water-smart landscape are found throughout the garden.” For those who want more information about this, see redhillsdesertgraden.com
We took a casual approach to exploring the garden, so this will be a casual description.
It’s quite evident that if you’re in the process of designing the landscaping for your home and want a better understanding of the local, native plant materials, that the garden has been organized to give you a hand. For instance, let’s say you’re wanting some spikey plants to enliven an area of your yard. The garden gives you a range of those choices.
Yucca and Agave
The garden also presents a variety of sizes and shapes as part of its catalog, ranging from ground-level cactus to medium size trees, like this ‘Desert Museum’, or
the ‘White Bunny Ears’ cactus in the foreground.
They made good use of the small stream that flows back and forth through the garden by showing it in a variety of ways with the plantings and rocks, such as in this ‘stream’ –
Stream and Plantings
or, in a more contemplative pond fashion, framed by a variety of plants.
They didn’t hesitate to build some structures into the garden as well. This has the advantage of providing periodic shade spots on hot days (and it was hot when we were there) but also to show a variety of approaches to accomplishing that. Here’s a simple one.
Here’s a more elaborate approach – might be a bit of overkill in your yard.
The openings in the back wall house desert creatures. We didn’t see much because they’re pretty sedentary during the heat of the day.
Occasionally a small bridge carried us over a (dry) stream bed that might be wet during the winter and down a stair through a miniature “slot canyon” to another display area. This type of design shows ways that people could add elements to their own gardens that mirror the forms found in the larger landscape.
While the slot canyon above is clearly a pedestrian stairway, other, more ‘natural’ formations were included as well.
One other aspect that didn’t get overlooked, and is appreciated by many, is the inclusion of flowers and other decorative plants, such as this gold lantana.
I took one shot looking over the garden towards the larger valley below.
View of the valley
And then, towards the end of our wandering we took in a wider view of the valley from the south side of the garden. Our attention was drawn to it, unfortunately, by a passing truck on the adjacent arterial – a pretty noisy element to mix into a contemplative garden atmosphere.
I found a better place to stand and shot a panorama, looking south into St George.
(I edited most of the infrastructure wires out of the photo.)
Then we drove around town just to see what it was like. Maybe we didn’t try hard enough; but we never did find any special parks or other features celebrating the joining of the rivers.
Our final view, on the way out of town was more prosaic.
St George Shopping Mall
We stopped at Starbucks for coffee and discovered the more normal auto-oriented panorama of life in St George.
Travel Design Impressions 