The ARK: Rural Botanical Garden for Arkansas
The botanical garden and zipline for Cherokee Village, a rural mid-century planned community in the Ozarks, is the center piece of new hospitality/eco-tourism landscapes under development. Legacy woodland-wildflower prairie planting assemblages once dotting the region’s managed pre-Columbian landscape are recalled in this now woodland-only ecosystem. Clearings at the scale of urban blocks are created to house a series of botanical rooms carved into the dense forest cover. Inverted pyramidical rooms negotiate visitor passage along the steep terrain paralleling the drama of nearby earthworks.
Bio The University of Arkansas Community Design Center is an outreach center of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, and one of a few university-based teaching offices in the United States dedicated to delivering urban design work. Originated in 1995, the center advances creative development in Arkansas through design, research, and education solutions. Nationally recognized in public-interest design, the center has its own downtown facilities and 5-6 professional design/planning staff, some who also teach.
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