Design of the VA Welcome Center combines function with celebration, utilizing a vehicular turnaround island as a memorial with basalt columns and a circle of flags. Welcoming visitors to the VA campus, the arrival plaza is a quintessential urban plaza planted with trees in a diagonal grid pattern that establishes scale—and gives welcome shade. By maintaining openness in the plaza design, Carducci Associates created not only a striking landmark, but also a versatile event space. Our landscape design extends to a Healing Garden where ornamental and California native trees, shrubs, and grasses provide a myriad of textures, colors, and fragrances.