Drumlins
Michael Machnic and Stuart Keeler
Redondo Heights Park & Ride
Earth forms echo geological history and reconsider the first Northwest commute.
During the last Ice Age, the Great Vashon Glacier moved across the Pacific Northwest, carving a path through the region and shaping its geological forms—from the steep chiseled mountains to the depths of the Puget Sound. Also created by this glacial drift? Fields of elongated hills, known as drumlins.
As Michael Machnic and Stuart Keeler set out to make an integrated artwork for a new 700-stall Park & Ride facility along the Pacific Highway in Federal Way, they thought about how the movement of the Great Vashon Glacier was essentially the first “transit impact” in the region, advancing and retreating back and forth across the terrain like a daily commute. This insight inspired Drumlins, a sculpture composed of five 35-foot earthen forms that emerge in succession from the landscape of the Park & Ride’s central transit island.
Machnic and Keeler’s project applies sustainable design strategies: The glittering faces of the drumlin forms are made from recycled glass. Landscaping around the sculptural forms uses native and drought-tolerant Kinnic Kinnic plantings and glacial rock excavated from the site. In addition to creating the drumlin forms, the artists designed patterns that are sandblasted into the concrete surfaces of the facility’s passenger waiting area.