BELLWETHER FARM

Wakeman, Ohio

Summer Camp and Retreat Center for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio

 

Design Team: GO Logic, LLC (prime), AKD

 

MASTER PLAN / SITE PLANNING /

LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Bellwether Farm is a summer camp and year-round retreat center currently being develop on a 140-acre working farm southwest of Cleveland. The Farm will be a regional demonstration center for sustainable agriculture and an experiential education facility, providing support infrastructure for school groups and workshops and access to the Farm’s rich landscape mosaic.

 

The Master Plan incorporates the Client’s project programming and sustainability goals into the Site Plan using principles of Landscape Ecology. Non-farm buildings and landscape program elements are located within an ‘Expanded Edge’, a transitional habitat zone between farm fields and woodlands.

 

AKD proposed an incremental approach to developing the Expanded Edge. The ’25-Year Plan’ integrates agricultural technologies and planning with a managed process of plant community succession. The landscape time frame, where the life span of a single tree encompasses many human generations, allows for all ages of the community to be actively involved in the planting, harvesting and stewardship of Bellwether Farm’s evolving environment.

EXISTING EDGE CONDITION - UPPER FIELDS

THE 25-YEAR PLAN:

SUCCESSIONAL EXPANDED EDGE DEVELOPMENT

THE 25-YEAR PLAN: YEAR 1

THE 25-YEAR PLAN: YEAR 5

THE 25-YEAR PLAN: YEAR 15

THE 25-YEAR PLAN: YEAR 25

YOUTH CAMP - EDGE DEVELOPMENT

OUTDOOR DINING AND GATHERING SPACE - EDGE DEVELOPMENT

MAIN ENTRY / WELCOME CENTER

WELCOME CENTER / CENTRAL PARKING

NATIVE PLANTING IN ADULT RETREAT AREA STORMWATER SWALES

 

© Ann Kearsley – Maine Landscape Architect. All rights reserved.