Rubus Landscape Architecture is thrilled to be part of the design team for the new, 17 acre Nature Playscape in Forest Park St. Louis. Announced on October 22 by Forest Park Forever President and Executive Director Lesley Hoffarth, The Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape will open to the public late spring 2021.

This 22 acre site began as a classic trees and turf area, and now 17 acres is being restored to forests and grasslands and contains 9 ecologically diverse play areas including a: Young Forest, Upland Prairie, Bottomland Forest, Sensory Garden, Gravel Bank, Wetland, Spring, Large Meadow and Mounds.

Rubus Landscape began design with Interboro Partners in 2018 and quickly enjoyed a supportive and talented design team lead by Interboro Partners including: David Mason & Associates engineers, Citizen Carpentry, June Hutson ecologist, Sarah Tisdale educator, Roots First planting consultant and the Forest Park Forever Executive team, Restoration Crew and Horticulture Crew. Key to Rubus Landscape’s involvement was our experience building the Zucker Natural Exploration Area in Prospect Park. Key to our design process, and a specialty of Interboro Partners, was a far reaching civic engagement process facilitated by Interboro Partners and Citizen Carpentry. Many St. Louis residents, especially kids were asked to envision a nature-based play area and we incorporated many of their ideas.

It is an exciting time for nature-based play, and St. Louis will soon feature one of the largest in their 1000 acre urban park in the heart of St. Louis. Thank you Forest Park Forever for your vision and hard work and thank you Anne O’C. Albrecht and all donors who made this possible.

Rubus Landscape has joined Gardens Rising! A community lead stormwater infrastructure project, Gardens Rising is a “groundbreaking experiment in citizen participation, self-governance and self-determination” say’s it’s executive director Aziz Dehkan. The New York City Community Garden Coalition (NYCCGC,) received a two million dollar grant from the Governor’s Office of Storm Recover (GOSR) to install storm recovery projects in the East Village’s 47 community gardens. One quarter of the grant is going to a Feasibility Study lead by WE Design landscape architects. The other three quarters will go toward installing projects between January 2017 and September 2019. Rubus Landscape has been hired as a staff project manager by the NYCCGC. This is a great roll for us, with our small size and extensive experience building in the public realm we can give personal attention to the project without big expense. WE Design is the primary landscape architect for the Feasibility Study with team members from eDesign Dynamics and 3x3 Design. Together with Aziz Dekhan, Executive Director and Charles Krezell, Project Director and founder of LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) it is a great team with extensive landscape architecture, engineering and community organizing experience, making sure Gardens Rising will be a successful project by and for the people.

The range of landscape types within these 47 gardens is amazing. From rolling hills and open plazas, to barn yard chickens and quite places to sit and read, these community gardens offer so many valuable places for people to live outside. Gardens Rising will add to the Gardens' value be making them even more important to the city as stormwater infrastructure and beacons of refuge during storm events. Gardeners hope this project will increase the value of gardens as gardens for the city, as most of them are only leased to the people and could be developed if the city decides it should be so. If you live in NYC please join us in this rewarding project. See the Gardens Rising website for details.

Nature Playscape - Forest Park

Gardens Rising in the East Village