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April 6, 2006

UWB goes for W

Kathy Sauber
Members of UW Bothell’s grounds maintenance crew stand by their recent fine work — a flower-filled “W” standing 17 feet tall and 25 feet wide that will greet visitors to campus. Tim Maurer (with the beard) is at the front, with Chris Mangialardi behind him, followed by Joe Marchand. At Maurer’s right is Ryan Kinser, then Richard Klein, Dan Sullivan and Barney Harvey.

The framed W stands complete and finished on March 27. The Big W shows up with bright purple and yellow against the plush green lawn for students and visitors to enjoy–online or on campus.

It’s about Feb. 13, and the area between the UW Bothell buildings has been cleared and a big “W” painted in red to represent where the structure will be.

A grounds crew member constructs the 17 by 25-foot frame for the W.

The frame for the Big W is completed off site, near the campus physical plant building, and sits in the sun awaiting placement. That’s grounds crew member Tyson Monsaas walking by.

The area for the Big W gets filled with topsoil and smoothed over. Fourteen tons of rocks also have been added, to shore up the area.

The frame having been installed, workers cover it with topsoil so that it’s flush with the surrounding area. From left, the workers are Richard Klein, Tyson Kemper and (bending over) Jeff Truly.

The frame installed, the work now begins of filling it with flowers that announce by their color whose W this is. In all, about 750 purple pansies and 250 yellow pansies went into the project, and will be replenished each spring (while the older flowers get transplanted elsewhere.)

The small UW Bothell campus looked like it needed something special, in real life as well as on its Web cam. And that got Tony Guerrero thinking.


Guerrero, UW Bothell’s plant manager and director of facilities services, said of the campus’ Web cam view, “You had UW Building 1 on the right and UW Building 2 on the left, but there was nothing that really said ‘you are on a UW campus.'”


The area between the buildings had been a bit unsightly, “and really didn’t do anything for us,” he said. Plus, “I wanted something to welcome students as they came from the garage across the street.”


So about last October, Guerrero huddled with his lead gardener Joe Marchand and colleague Theresa Hickey and thought of a way to give the area some extra identity. They and members of the campus communications staff worked together to superimpose a big “W” onto a photograph of the area in question, to see how it looked. And it looked pretty good.


Guerrero said as the campus was in transition between permanent chancellors, he took the idea, and the Photoshop illustration, to Steven Olswang, interim chancellor at Bothell. “The chancellor loved it. He said, ‘Let’s get going on it,'” Guerrero said.


Then the real work began in January, when Guerrero’s grounds crew removed the existing vegetation from the area, added a layer of sandy loam and then about 50 cubic yards of topsoil. Then they used about 135 feet of 4×6 lumber to build a wooden framed “W” measuring 17 feet by 25 feet in a separate location. They screwed it together tight, pressure-treated it, embedded it in the earth, and set to filling it with flowers.


The work continued through February and into March, when it paused for a week due to poor weather, then resumed. In all, Guerrero said, they used 750 purple pansies and about 250 yellow pansies “to go around the trim.” They laid grass on about 2,600 square feet of turf around the W and even added about 14 tons of rock to help shore up the sides of the area.


The Big W was completed on March 27, and stands ready to greet all campus visitors. Guerrero said in the winter the plants will be transplanted to another location and the area filled with other colorful vegetation. Then each spring, the W will again be filled with fresh purple and yellow pansies.


For his part, Interim Chancellor Olswang praised the project and those who got down in the dirt to make it happen.


“All the credit goes to our physical plant staff,” Olswang said. “They conceived it, designed it, priced it and actually created it.” He added, “Any time you have a group of motivated staff who want to try something to improve the campus, it’s great to be able to give them the go-ahead, and that’s what I was able to do.”


Now, the UW Bothell Web cam (http://www.washington.edu/cambots/) shows, in a single outsized letter, that that part of Bothell, at least, is Husky territory.

-Peter Kelley with Tony Guerrero