Public Commission, University of Minnesota; collaboration with John Roloff, artist. Site design of the four outdoor courtyards, west garden constructed 2005.

The site of Rapson Hall has been remade many times: from primordial ocean to land eroded by the glaciers to a place of human habitation. Most recently, the site was remade by a 2003 addition to the building by Steven Holl Architects. The form of the addition created four outdoor courtyards –  the locations of the Site Index project. Here, each courtyard expresses a different conceptual and physical expression of the same three elements of “site”: stone, water, and vegetation. The idea of the index is used to ask questions and reveal information about the materials and processes operating on the site.

The courtyards all contain Minnesota black granite in different forms: slabs, remnants, or gravel. The location of the granite was recorded by GPS, and inscribed into the slabs. The “Rosetta Stone” will be placed in the Rapson Library and inscribed with all the data to link together the information about the origins, locations, and temporal data of the granite used in the courtyards.