Nestled in the picturesque Ouachita Mountains of Southwest Arkansas, Garvan Woodland Gardens is an example of The Natural State at its best: a canopy of pines reaching skyward providing protection for delicate flora and fauna, gentle lapping waves that unfold along the 4.5 miles of wooded shoreline, and rocky inclines that remind us of the surrounding Ouachita Mountains.
In 2018, the Bob and Sunny Evans Tree House opened, offering over 600 sq. feet of interpretive learning space focusing on dendrology, or the study of trees. From the Root Plaza below to the 3-level Tree House, children of all ages can explore while learning about how trees grow and their specific functions in the earth's environment.
For this project, our team led the landscape architectural site design for the area surrounding the Tree House, with an emphasis on the site ecology and the restoration of site disturbance during project construction.
Garvan Woodland Gardens’ mission is to preserve and enhance a unique part of the Ouachita environment; provide people with a place of learning, research, cultural enrichment, and serenity; develop and sustain gardens, landscapes, and structures of exceptional aesthetics, design, and construction; and partner with and serve communities of which the Gardens is a part. It is a mission that is at the forefront of our own work.
This unique experience allows those visiting Garvan Woodland Gardens to be not only an observer of the surrounding beauty but allows them a chance to interact with it as well. The first of three that they have planned, this tree house is a part of the movement to reconnect with the natural elements that surround us.
As you enter the treehouse there are four different levels that as you ascend are meant to represent the different parts of a tree. The tree house serves as a unique experience to interact with and be enveloped by nature while at the same time learning about it in a tactile way.
Over the course of the past century not only have our ecological systems been fractured but the relationship between nature and people has as well. Projects like the Garvan Tree House foster an excitement in people to start experiencing the outdoors in a way that they might not have tried before. The use of native wood creates yet another immersive element to this already unique design.
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