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 managed pre-Columbian landscape of the region 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 Mississippian Mound Builder earthworks that landmark flatter terrain.
Perception of the wood-screened structures are constantly shifting between monumentality and transparency in accordance with the visitor’s movement. Interactions among screened rooms, organic plant assemblages, steep slopes, and forest cover create a parallax that simultaneously upholds and denies the garden’s monumental scale. This place-based asset provides informal and formal event space presently missing in this bedroom community.
Awards
2023 London International Creative Competition Official Selection—Architecture
2023 American Architecture Award
2022 AN Best of Design Awards Winner: Unbuilt—Landscape, Urban Design & Master Plan
Sponsor
National Endowment for the Arts
Client
City of Cherokee Village, Arkansas