Lake County Adaptation
Lake County, Illinois
Designing for healthy soil.
Practice Landscape is working to revitalize a 33-acre residence along with adjacent crop and pasture fields in agricultural Lake County, Illinois. The landscape is in transition from grazing land to a more ecologically complex mix of wetland, meadowland, and mixed shrubland.
From the start of the Lake County Adaptation we’ve followed the guiding principle, “designing for healthy soil.” In practice, this meant not disturbing or compacting any more of the site to allow the land to slowly recover from decades of overgrazing. It also necessitated limiting all new built work to within the 5-acres of the original farm’s buildings, drive, and corrals, excluding the use of herbacides, and keeping and reusing all materials on site.
Image above: The wetland in spring one year after recovery and planting with ENCAP Inc. Right: The Croft garden in fall, at planting, unbuilding, and the pole barn before, drawing of unbuilding Kiel Moe + DDL.
Practice Landscape is working to revitalize a 33-acre residence along with adjacent crop and pasture fields in agricultural Lake County, Illinois. The landscape is in transition from grazing land to a more ecologically complex mix of wetland, meadowland, and mixed shrubland.
From the start of the Lake County Adaptation we’ve followed the guiding principle, “designing for healthy soil.” In practice, this meant not disturbing or compacting any more of the site to allow the land to slowly recover from decades of overgrazing. It also necessitated limiting all new built work to within the 5-acres of the original farm’s buildings, drive, and corrals, excluding the use of herbacides, and keeping and reusing all materials on site.
Images above: The wetland in spring one year after recovery and planting with ENCAP Inc. Below: The Croft garden planting, unbuilding, and the pole barn before, drawing of unbuilding Kiel Moe + DDL.
Practice Landscape is working to revitalize a 33-acre residence along with adjacent crop and pasture fields in agricultural Lake County, Illinois. The landscape is in transition from grazing land to a more ecologically complex mix of wetland, meadowland, and mixed shrubland.
From the start of the Lake County Adaptation we’ve followed the guiding principle, “designing for healthy soil.” In practice, this meant not disturbing or compacting any more of the site to allow the land to slowly recover from decades of overgrazing. It also necessitated limiting all new built work to within the 5-acres of the original farm’s buildings, drive, and corrals, excluding the use of herbacides, and keeping and reusing all materials on site.
Images above: The wetland in spring one year after recovery and planting with ENCAP Inc. Below: The Croft garden planting, unbuilding, and the pole barn before, drawing of unbuilding Kiel Moe + DDL.
The Croft
The walled garden on the 5-acre Homestead, or the Croft as we’ve named it, was born of the clients’ desire to cultivate a garden in the midst of an exposed site. While most of the former farm are meadowland and wetland, the Croft could be a place for horticulture, protected from browsing deer and rabbits, and from some of the harsh winds that sweep across from the nearby soy fields.
Together with Kiel Moe and Decentralized Design Lab we struck upon a novel way to get an acre of walled garden and the components for a new structure on site, while limiting the need to import more materials: “unbuild” the existing timber-framed pole barn.
Unbuilding: The roofing and cladding of the pole barn were removed down to 6-7’ above grade, while 10 of the 14 trusses were cut and carried 150’ away to create the structure of a new garage workshop near the existing house. Left in place were the two long walls of the barn and a 60’x40’ roofed space at the far end with the full wall and massive sliding barn door in place. The unbuilding was overseen by Alex Heid and executed by Blue Earth Deconstruction.
Structure: The walls are high enough to keep out browsing deer but can be opened for airflow and views when in use. The former entrance to the barn and the barn doors were rebuilt in untreated cedar and completed with built-in storage and a sloping metal roof. Lastly, the walls and remaining roof were painted black, inside, and out.
Soil: Historic aerial images and conversations with local farmers suggested that the raised platform the pole-barn was built on was constructed with fill from the excavation of the 70’s retention pond on site. Digging into the compacted ground revealed clean layers of sand and aggregate. In collaboration with Mariani Landscape, the contractors, we excavated the footprint of the garden to 30” mixing approximately 500 cubic yards of excavated material with 50 yards of organic compost. The mixed material was then returned to the excavated hole, graded, and covered with mulch for a season.
Planting: The plants in the croft are a riot of colors tucked within a subtle midwestern landscape. It is designed as a perennial cutting garden, interspersed with edible herbs, forbs, and grasses. In total, 81 different species were planted in June 2023 along with the help of Mariani Landscape. Plants were grown by Intrinsic Perennial Gardens in Hebron IL and Johnson’s Nursery in Menomonee Falls, WI, and three massive single-stemmed Crataegus (Hawthorns) from Kaneville Tree Farms.
The Croft
The walled garden on the 5-acre Homestead, or the Croft as we’ve named it, was born of the clients’ desire to cultivate a garden in the midst of an exposed site. While most of the former farm are meadowland and wetland, the Croft could be a place for horticulture, protected from browsing deer and rabbits, and from some of the harsh winds that sweep across from the nearby soy fields.
Together with Kiel Moe and Decentralized Design Lab we struck upon a novel way to get an acre of walled garden and the components for a new structure on site, while limiting the need to import more materials: “unbuild” the existing timber-framed pole barn.
Unbuilding: The roofing and cladding of the pole barn were removed down to 6-7’ above grade, while 10 of the 14 trusses were cut and carried 150’ away to create the structure of a new garage workshop near the existing house. Left in place were the two long walls of the barn and a 60’x40’ roofed space at the far end with the full wall and massive sliding barn door in place. The unbuilding was overseen by Alex Heid and executed by Blue Earth Deconstruction.
Structure: The walls are high enough to keep out browsing deer but can be opened for airflow and views when in use. The former entrance to the barn and the barn doors were rebuilt in untreated cedar and completed with built-in storage and a sloping metal roof. Lastly, the walls and remaining roof were painted black, inside, and out.
Soil: Historic aerial images and conversations with local farmers suggested that the raised platform the pole-barn was built on was constructed with fill from the excavation of the 70’s retention pond on site. Digging into the compacted ground revealed clean layers of sand and aggregate. In collaboration with Mariani Landscape, the contractors, we excavated the footprint of the garden to 30” mixing approximately 500 cubic yards of excavated material with 50 yards of organic compost. The mixed material was then returned to the excavated hole, graded, and covered with mulch for a season.
Planting: The plants in the croft are a riot of colors tucked within a subtle midwestern landscape. It is designed as a perennial cutting garden, interspersed with edible herbs, forbs, and grasses. In total, 81 different species were planted in June 2023 along with the help of Mariani Landscape. Plants were grown by Intrinsic Perennial Gardens in Hebron IL and Johnson’s Nursery in Menomonee Falls, WI, and three massive single-stemmed Crataegus (Hawthorns) from Kaneville Tree Farms.
Ecological Assessment
The project started with an Ecological Assessment of the site that serves as a baseline for future analysis and experimentation. In the era of climate change it is more important than ever to recognize and document benchmarks against which we can measure. The Ecological Assessment is a sort of prequel to the Landscape Strategy which will hold the record of management regimes, analyses of the results, and practices used to restore the woodlands, meadowlands and forestlands, and homestead. We prepared the ‘Ecological Assessment’ in order to inform a closer reading of the existing site, paying careful attention to dynamics often concealed underfoot and that evade direct experience. What is revealed is how the lands were conditioned by change, the result of a series of transformations that span not only centuries but millions of years. The evolution of the land is depicted at three moments in time, representing different scales. Understanding the current status of the land informs all future decisions.
Landscape Strategy
We design with adaptive management because landscape is a process not a product. The landscape strategy is a planning document that replaces the fixity of a masterplan by providing scenarios that vary over time, acknowledging shifting plant communities and maintenance regimes and integrating the cultural and ecological landscape. Existing land-use practices have had a profound and continuing impact on the site. The transformation of those practices will eventually reshape both the surface of the land and the composition and structure of the soil. Healthy soil than can hold water and encourage diverse and deep root systems will be the key to long-term success of any landscape design.
Ecological Assessment
The project started with an Ecological Assessment of the site that serves as a baseline for future analysis and experimentation. In the era of climate change it is more important than ever to recognize and document benchmarks against which we can measure. The Ecological Assessment is a sort of prequel to the Landscape Strategy which will hold the record of management regimes, analyses of the results, and practices used to restore the woodlands, meadowlands and forestlands, and homestead. We prepared the ‘Ecological Assessment’ in order to inform a closer reading of the existing site, paying careful attention to dynamics often concealed underfoot and that evade direct experience. What is revealed is how the lands were conditioned by change, the result of a series of transformations that span not only centuries but millions of years. The evolution of the land is depicted at three moments in time, representing different scales. Understanding the current status of the land informs all future decisions.
Landscape Strategy
We design with adaptive management because landscape is a process not a product. The landscape strategy is a planning document that replaces the fixity of a masterplan by providing scenarios that vary over time, acknowledging shifting plant communities and maintenance regimes and integrating the cultural and ecological landscape. Existing land-use practices have had a profound and continuing impact on the site. The transformation of those practices will eventually reshape both the surface of the land and the composition and structure of the soil. Healthy soil than can hold water and encourage diverse and deep root systems will be the key to long-term success of any landscape design.
Ecological Assessment
The project started with an Ecological Assessment of the site that serves as a baseline for future analysis and experimentation. In the era of climate change it is more important than ever to recognize and document benchmarks against which we can measure. The Ecological Assessment is a sort of prequel to the Landscape Strategy which will hold the record of management regimes, analyses of the results, and practices used to restore the woodlands, meadowlands and forestlands, and homestead. We prepared the ‘Ecological Assessment’ in order to inform a closer reading of the existing site, paying careful attention to dynamics often concealed underfoot and that evade direct experience. What is revealed is how the lands were conditioned by change, the result of a series of transformations that span not only centuries but millions of years. The evolution of the land is depicted at three moments in time, representing different scales. Understanding the current status of the land informs all future decisions.
Landscape Strategy
We design with adaptive management because landscape is a process not a product. The landscape strategy is a planning document that replaces the fixity of a masterplan by providing scenarios that vary over time, acknowledging shifting plant communities and maintenance regimes and integrating the cultural and ecological landscape. Existing land-use practices have had a profound and continuing impact on the site. The transformation of those practices will eventually reshape both the surface of the land and the composition and structure of the soil. Healthy soil than can hold water and encourage diverse and deep root systems will be the key to long-term success of any landscape design.
Practices
Practice is the interaction between humans and plants. The adaptive management plan sets into motion foundational practices that mutually enhance life on site. These commonplace acts link the everyday and the transformational. Landscape recovery and restoration with ENCAP Inc.
Stack: Pruned deadwood is stacked, layering large branches and twigs between an existing wire fence and recycled posts from a dismantled animal enclosure. Stack is a scalable human effort, a way of collaborating with place. The design emerges over time, in the accumulation and break down of material and the fostering of new life.
Mulch: Mulch is not a noun; it is a biology. Mulching not only reduces waste, it fosters and encourages the growth of microorganisms. Designing with mulch is an offshoot of designing with plant life because mulch itself is alive. Mulch is collected and created on site, and donated from nearby coffee roasters in the form of coffee chaff.
Prune: Humans manipulate plants, and in response, plants change people. If we allow ourselves to slow down and work with the time scales of other species, novel management practices emerge. Root suckers become chip mulch, vigorous branching is cut and stacked as material for screens, and live cuttings are planted to grow a living fence.
Practices
Practice is the interaction between humans and plants. The adaptive management plan sets into motion foundational practices that mutually enhance life on site. These commonplace acts link the everyday and the transformational.
Stack: Pruned deadwood is stacked, layering large branches and twigs between an existing wire fence and recycled posts from a dismantled animal enclosure. Stack is a scalable human effort, a way of collaborating with place. The design emerges over time, in the accumulation and break down of material and the fostering of new life.
Mulch: Mulch is not a noun; it is a biology. Mulching not only reduces waste, it fosters and encourages the growth of microorganisms. Designing with mulch is an offshoot of designing with plant life because mulch itself is alive. Mulch is collected and created on site, and donated from nearby coffee roasters in the form of coffee chaff.
Prune: Humans manipulate plants, and in response, plants change people. If we allow ourselves to slow down and work with the time scales of other species, novel management practices emerge. Root suckers become chip mulch, vigorous branching is cut and stacked as material for screens, and live cuttings are planted to grow a living fence.
Practices
Practice is the interaction between humans and plants. The adaptive management plan sets into motion foundational practices that mutually enhance life on site. These commonplace acts link the everyday and the transformational.
Stack: Pruned deadwood is stacked, layering large branches and twigs between an existing wire fence and recycled posts from a dismantled animal enclosure. Stack is a scalable human effort, a way of collaborating with place. The design emerges over time, in the accumulation and break down of material and the fostering of new life.
Mulch: Mulch is not a noun; it is a biology. Mulching not only reduces waste, it fosters and encourages the growth of microorganisms. Designing with mulch is an offshoot of designing with plant life because mulch itself is alive. Mulch is collected and created on site, and donated from nearby coffee roasters in the form of coffee chaff.
Prune: Humans manipulate plants, and in response, plants change people. If we allow ourselves to slow down and work with the time scales of other species, novel management practices emerge. Root suckers become chip mulch, vigorous branching is cut and stacked as material for screens, and live cuttings are planted to grow a living fence.
Practices
Practice is the interaction between humans and plants. The adaptive management plan sets into motion foundational practices that mutually enhance life on site. These commonplace acts link the everyday and the transformational.
Stack: Pruned deadwood is stacked, layering large branches and twigs between an existing wire fence and recycled posts from a dismantled animal enclosure. Stack is a scalable human effort, a way of collaborating with place. The design emerges over time, in the accumulation and break down of material and the fostering of new life.
Mulch: Mulch is not a noun; it is a biology. Mulching not only reduces waste, it fosters and encourages the growth of microorganisms. Designing with mulch is an offshoot of designing with plant life because mulch itself is alive. Mulch is collected and created on site, and donated from nearby coffee roasters in the form of coffee chaff.
Prune: Humans manipulate plants, and in response, plants change people. If we allow ourselves to slow down and work with the time scales of other species, novel management practices emerge. Root suckers become chip mulch, vigorous branching is cut and stacked as material for screens, and live cuttings are planted to grow a living fence.
Below: Stacking debris and pruned branches for a living wall. Managing aggressive species without the use of herbicides. Quercus ellipsoidalis collected on site to grow individuals from seed. Coffee chaff to be used as mulch, donated by Parlor Coffee. A prescribed burn with ENCAP, Inc. in March as part of the long-term meadow management plan.
The site is located on the traditional unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. The region has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. We acknowledge the indigenous roots of the state of Illinois and recognizes the deep history of the land tied to the traditions of the Potawatomi Tribe.