Serena Garden Stonework Receives 2022 Pinnacle Award

The Serena Williams Garden, located at the Nike World Headquarters

building in Beaverton, Oregon, utilizes 45,000 SF of flamed and water-jet

natural stone and features thirteen curved stone walls, benches, intricately

set pavers, and a 7.5 foot tall and 60 foot long stone monument honoring the

tennis legend. The design of the garden was inspired by the game of tennis,

the architect said, “seeing these curved, massive stone structures rising up,

out of the ground. There is a kind of power and dynamism that a great athlete

has.” The movement of Serena’s tennis stroke is incorporated through the

curvature of the walls and even the shape of lettering in her name.

The curved walls have a 3/12 pitch to the ground and the top of the wall

cap slopes in two directions-from the peak to both ends. To ensure the

successful installation on site, the fabricator pre-assembled every curved

stone piece into thirteen different sizes of steel frames at the factory to verify

the installation effect. The six letter stones made from Platinum Black granite

are wedge-shaped, 6” thick at the top while only 1-1/2” thick at the bottom.

Each piece is about 5.6 feet by 3.5 feet and weighs between 600 - 900lb.

The 20,000 SF of rhomboid pavers required a precise, +0/-1mm tolerance

upon installation. To ensure the level of quality desired was met, KEPCO+

KEPCO+ made 12 multi-day trips to the fabricator’s facility to promote

and enforce quality, painstakingly selecting the stone, dry-laying all pavers

and wall panels to acheive color consistency, and verifying the sizes using

lasered-cut metal templates. Installation crews worked diligently to meet the

stringent quality control specifications and tight tolerances. The end result is

a unique garden, executed with the highest level of skill and precision, that

showcases the diversity of natural stone and honors the talent of the athlete.