Arbolope Studio is an award-winning landscape architecture and urban design firm based in St. Louis, Missouri ( MO ), USA

St. Ferdinand Homes II Landscape

Location
St. Louis, MO
Client

Northside Community Housing

Rise Community Development

Team

St. Louis Design Alliance

Services

Landscape Architecture
Urban Design
Streetscape Design
Sustainable Storm-Water Management
Grant Application Support

Awards

2019 Honor Award, ASLA St. Louis

MSD Project Clear Grant Recipient

About the Project

The St. Ferdinand Homes II project will bring high-quality, well-maintained and affordable housing to the Historic Greater Ville Neighborhood with 43 mixed-income, new and rehabbed units in 12 structures. The Landscape complements the project vision and neighborhood revitalization efforts with a thoughtful, high-quality, clearly legible, low-maintenance, biodiversity forward and sustainability minded design.

Rather than approaching each building landscape and open space individually, the design uses strong arrangements of ornamental trees, shrubs and groundcovers to create a bold, district-long, unifying gesture meant to serve as a community-building point of pride for SFH II residents and neighborhoods.

The gesture continues into“Triangle Park”, an attractive district anchor and passive-use landscape. The park design includes: sculpted topography (using excess development fill) to create a highly visible, dynamic and layered landscape; angular walking paths that create a light exercise circuit and park cut-through; bright mural walls and new public art program; salvaged materials creatively used as stepping stones, weirs and boulders; swales and a large rain garden to collect park and district stormwater; distinct tree groupings that line pathways or create visual accents; and large, monolithic beds of native and/or adapted plants that reinforce the park’s geometry. While the landscape is designed for multi-season interest, it is intended to be particularly vibrant in the fall.