As the gateway to Veterans' Park in Fayetteville, N.C., the Visitor Center frames the 150-seat amphitheater, community lawn and Story Garden. The center's architecture features a custom glass service medal wall, a large automated globe and an inspiring suspended sculpture formed by over 35,000 dog tags.
Photo: Mark Herboth Photography

In 2008, the North Carolina Legislature approved funding for a veterans' park in Fayetteville (pop. 205,678). The city, situated on the Cape Fear River in the Sandhills of the western coastal plain, was deemed an appropriate site, as it's home to Fort Bragg and Pope Army Airfield. The legislation specified a "contemporary, unique, and bold" park, a "place for meaningful reflection and inspiration." The park was seen as a connection to the Airborne and Special Operations Museum, and an impetus for downtown redevelopment.

ThinkGlass, of Boisbriand, Quebec, produced this striking four-inch thick, 10 feet tall, five feet wide glass monument for the Story Garden, a quiet spot with custom benches and informal paths. The garden is seen from the Visitor Center. Three Wesco WBD-100-1 low-voltage LEDs (12-volt, 5 watts each) strategically uplight the monument, explains Rob Wagner, AIA, LEED AP.
Photo: Mark Herboth Photography

Initial Development
The city and Vandewalle and Associates of Madison, Wis., developed the original vision documents. Kimley-Horn in Fayetteville was selected to design the park, incorporate stakeholder input (more than 100 design coordination meetings), and deal with physical site constraints, including stream buffers, flood plain delineations, soils and drainage. Appropriate imagery, flag protocol, quotes and how the branches of the military should be represented engaged intense discussions.

The Community Plaza presents 50 concrete and glass columns with 400 hand castings from veterans and their families representing every N.C. county. The names of each of the state's 100 counties are spelled out on panels, with a configuration map of the county. The columns are arranged by the year the counties were established.
Photo: Mark Herboth Photography

Master Plan
Emphasis was placed on common materials (steel) and design themes (water). As the legislative mandate was "bold and unique," the team steered clear of engraved monuments, names and dates common to memorial parks. The first step was to create a pedestrian connection between the Airborne and Special Operations Museum and the park. The "Iron Mike" statue in front of the museum, and the park's larger-than-life General Hugh Shelton statue anchor the pedestrian way. The Visitor Center is a contemporary, linear structure, framing views into the park and a backdrop for the community lawn. Under a canopy formed by its roofline, visitors view the storyline engraved on a simple wall: "From the soils of North Carolina "?(R)? The people of North Carolina Honor your service and welcome you home."

Program Challenges
When the owner learned H. Ross Perot wanted to commission a statue of General Henry Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997-2001) and commander of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, the design team saw a potential conflict with the vision for the park. The plans in progress were studied and design modifications made to create a signature place of honor for the statue along the Veterans Connector walkway.

Design Elements
As you enter the park under the Visitor Center canopy you encounter the stunning, colorful Service Medal Wall, 171 individual-colored glass panels exhibiting ribbons of military honors of the five military branches, from the Medal of Honor and the Good Conduct award, to the ribbon for completing basic training.

The Garden Support Sentry, a nine-foot tall slab of solid glass uplit with LEDs, marks the end of a visual path from the entrance of the park through the Visitors Center and the Story Garden. Carved into the glass element is an excerpt from the "Carolina's Welcome Home" speech by Thomas Bickett, governor of North Carolina during World War I.

The project site was a derelict piece of land adjacent to Cross Creek, a narrow, urbanized stream with some sections of hardened channel. The project coaxed the land back to health and community service. A relocated streambed, rain gardens, and constructed wetlands were some of the means used to achieve this goal. The flowing boardwalk mimics the adjacent stream. Stormwater is treated in constructed, naturalized wetlands. Plants here include river birch (Betula nigra "Duraheat'); weeping willow (Salix babylonica); inkberry holly (Ilex glabra); and sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia)

The North Wall of the visitor center is the backdrop for the Community Lawn. The N.C. Living Wall employs vegetation, native stone and water to represent the state's topography, from its highest peaks to the piedmont the Atlantic shores. The Story Garden is an intimate setting with the soothing sounds of water. The Mountains to the Sea is a flowing, linear water feature representing the state's watershed flowing to the ocean. N.C. Gliders is a quiet stop along the walkway near the community lawn to swing on a bench made from native hardwoods. The form of the bench suggests the N.C. flag.

The first plaza encountered from the Visitors' Center, Community Life Before Service, evokes the new soldiers' life before the transition from family and home into service. Presented on 50 concrete and glass columns in the Community Plaza are hand castings from veterans and their families, and the names of each of the 100 N.C. counties. The county columns are ordered by their year of creation. Each hand casting includes soil from each of the counties. The gently curving Oath of Service Wall displays 100 detailed, life-size bronze hand castings of N.C. veterans held at shoulder height, symbolically taking the oath of service. All 100 N.C. counties are represented, and soils from each county are included. Inscribed on the wall is the military oath of enlistment/commissioning. The Service Plaza includes the Patriot Wall, a linear water feature of North Carolina granite, bluestone, polished steel panels and etched glass. The wall's Service Grotto is two glass walls etched with images, and water flowing on their surfaces. On one wall the soldier's image is without race or gender, looking across the space to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution etched in the shape of a star. Here also is the wartime tradition of families displaying flags to honor family actively serving. Such flags had a blue star for each family member serving. Blue stars are traditionally replaced with a gold star should the veteran be killed in service. In the plaza are stainless steel reflective panels. Etched on the north wall is a star field; the south wall is etched with wavy bands of varied textures suggesting a flag and themes of service and country.

Replacing an internal entrance drive to the Airborne & Special Operations Museum (ASOM) resulted in a strong, linear space connecting the ASOM, framing the existing parade field and offering a home for local public art. The larger than life statue is General Henry Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1997-2001), and commander of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in his home state of North Carolina. H. Ross Perot commissioned the statue, which was not part of the design plans for the park. The walk is lined with "Knock Out' roses.

The 35-ft. Pride and Purpose Sentry tower, made of steel and clad in granite, rises out of a pool of water, awash in colorful special effects lighting at night. An illuminated canon mounted nearby can pierce the night sky during special events. A series of Artifact Gallery Walls create rooms within the plaza. Each wall is a unique piece of art fabricated from salvaged military equipment. On the east edge of the Service Plaza are five Service Arches, one for each military branch. These provide a "visual and physical gateway from life in the service to life after." The Reflection Garden is on the creek side of the Service Plaza. It's a contemplative space buffered from adjacent streets with walls, and landscaping. A curvilinear creek side boardwalk mimics the nearby stream. Native plantings and the rain gardens collect stormwater. Water in this space takes the form of a bubbling springhead to repeat its companion feature in the community plaza, suggesting a return to home. A second water feature is a stoic, calm and reflective pool of water over black granite. Camaraderie Plaza, a group setting for programmed presentations, is framed by water and gardens.

The Community Lawn serves as an unstructured play area or for formal events. With time, vegetation on the perimeter fence will mature to provide a green enclosure for the space.
Photos: Mark Herboth Photography

Natural Creekside Zone
At the northern edge of the park the structured plaza geometry dissolves into lawn and native plant zones toward the banks of Cross Creek. This zone also denotes important environmentally regulated and zones to protect water resources. Rehabilitated landscapes is part of the project vision. The site was derelict land adjacent to Cross Creek, a narrow, urbanized stream with some sections of hardened channel. The project coaxed the land back to health and community service. A relocated streambed, rain gardens, and constructed wetlands were some of the means used to achieve this goal.

One end of the Veterans' Walk leads to the Airborne & Special Operations Museum and the imposing "Iron Mike" statue. "Iron Mike" is the name of a number of U.S. military statues. Sculpture Leah Hiebert completed this 16-ft., 4-inch "Iron Mike" for Fort Bragg in 1962, which depicts a WWII Airborne trooper with a Thompson submachine gun. Sgt. Maj. James Runyon was the model. The statue deteriorated, and was replaced with a bronze version, then moved here in 2010.

Stream Banks and Water Quality
The design of the site addressed protection of the stream banks and water quality: double rows of silt protection fencing; establishment and preservation of stream buffers; design of grading plans to protect the flood plain and enhance flood storage volume by selected excavation and reshaping contours; design of constructed wetlands to receive stormwater runoff and filter it prior to release into the stream; relocation of a side-feeder ditch to create a longer, naturalized stream channel to improve water quality and stream habitat, reduce flow rates and introduce more native vegetation species; integration of rain gardens and bioretention areas into the site design to enhance treatment of stormwater runoff and provide a public commitment to environmental stewardship.

Project Team
Owner: City of Fayetteville, N.C.
Landscape Architects: Kimley-Horn and Associates, Raleigh, N.C.
Associate Design Firms: CRJA-IBI Group, Knoxville, Tenn. & Vandewalle and Associates, Madison, Wis.
Architect: Clearscapes, P.A., Raleigh
Civil Engineers / Surveying: McKim & Creed, Raleigh
Structural Design – Visitor Center: Fleming & Associates, P.A., Fayetteville, N.C.
Geotechnical: S&ME, N.C.
General Contractor: LeChase Construction Services, LLC, Durham, N.C.
Subcontractors
• Water Features: WESCO, North Venice, Fla.
• Sitework: Wells Brothers Construction, Turkey, N.C.
• Custom Metal: Alumiworks, LLC, Randleman, N.C.
• Custom Art Glass: Custom Glass and Door Studios, Raleigh • Landscape: Freeman Landscape, Wilmington, N.C.
Public Art Coordinators
• Sondra Martin, Fayetteville State University • Arts Council Fayetteville / Cumberland County

The area's natural springs are tied to the founding and growth of Fayetteville. The water features, crafted from native granite, are located in the Community Plaza suggesting beginnings of the soldiers' journey, and again in the Reflection Garden, suggesting a return home.
Photo: Mark Herboth Photography

Vendors / Products
• ThinkGlass – Quebec Canada (Custom glass Sentry feature)
• Forms + Surfaces (Site Furnishings)
• Selux (Rotono series)
• B-K Lighting (Site Lighting)
• David Allen Company – Raleigh, NC (State seal feature; Terrazzo)
• Kim Lighting (Site Lighting)

Five gateway arches, one for each branch of the armed services, represent the transition from service to community. Passing through them brings you to an area of lawns and benches. The water feature is a polished segmented central disc of black granite with Mount Airy, N.C. granite coping, creating a quiet flow of water that reinforces the character of the Reflection Garden. The design is by KHA and installation by WESCO. Uplit is a "Hightower' willow oak.

A companion to the park, this pedestrian path connects to a larger path and greenway system and provides a structured border to the veterans' campus. It is anchored on one end by the existing Veterans Memorial Park and, when complete, will connect to a nearby park on the other end.
Photos: Mark Herboth Photography

The Reflection Garden offers a quiet corner in the landscape with custom benches, Selux "Ritorno' HID lighting (aluminum pole/reflector) and a quote wall. The quote here, attributed to George Washington, reads: "The courage of a life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy." The end of the quote, not reproduced on the wall, continues: "A man does what he must"?uin spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures"?uand that is the basis of all human morality." A fact check by LASN finds this quote is from John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage (Harper & Brothers, 1956). The 50th anniversary edition of the book (HarperCollins, 2013) has the quote on p. 225.

On the North Patriot Wall is a star field and the words of the "Association" who met June 20, 1775 at Lewis Barge's tavern in Cross Creek, N.C., to protest Britain's military intervention. They resolved to "go forth and be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes to secure her freedom and safety."

The South Patriot Wall has a fa?????ade of subtle, wavy bands of stainless steel to reflect the spouting waters, people, art, sky and landscape, and a base border of bluestone panels. The words inscribed here on the south Patriot Wall were taken from N.C. native General Hugh Shelton's farewell address made at Summerall Field, Fort Myer, Va., October 1, 2001. It reads: ""?(R)?thanks to our great soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coastguardsmen-always at the point of the spear, flying their aircraft, sailing their ships and patrolling their sectors far from home. They have never let our Nation down and they never will. They stand ready for the challenges ahead!"
Photos: Mark Herboth Photography

The Pride and Purpose Sentry is a 35-ft. tower of steel clad in granite, arising from a granite pool basin with fountain jets.
Photo: Mark Herboth Photography