A three-decade legacy of award-winning collaboration between the landscape architect and Olbrich Botanical Gardens continues with the Education Center and Greenhouses, the garden’s newest addition. Project objectives included: implementing extensive and effective stormwater management, improving site wayfinding and accessibility for all abilities, elevating the visual connection between adjacent display gardens, celebrating the site’s historical context within the Madison community and Wisconsin’s native flora, and expanding opportunities for community-oriented engagement and education.

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The landscape architect was brought on to the project to lead site planning and design for both the education center and the greenhouse expansion and worked closely with garden staff, the project’s architects, and the project’s civil engineers to realign pedestrian and vehicular circulation and provide a welcoming, accessible, and intuitive sense of wayfinding on an already established site. The landscape architect was also responsible for preserving as many of the site’s mature specimen trees as possible throughout construction, re-establishing an axial vegetative allée that was removed during building siting, and strengthening important viewsheds and physical connections to adjacent event spaces and display gardens, all of which were deemed critical to the success of the project by garden donors and staff. As with every collaboration featured at Olbrich, the horticultural staff designed the project’s native-forward planting scheme with the Garden’s aesthetic and sustainability goals in mind.

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The buildings themselves are an important milestone in the Garden’s long-term goal of being recognized as an international leader of environmental education, with the surrounding landscape, extensive underground infrastructure, and visible, at-grade references like the demonstration rain garden highlighting the effective on-site stormwater management and the Garden’s ongoing commitment to global sustainability initiatives. Intuitive site circulation, site-specific planting design, and locally informed materiality selections were critical components to achieve the seamless integration of the learning center into the existing grounds. The central feature of the project, coined ‘The Long Walk’, and the Evjue Commons outdoor terrace behind it, are shining examples of how thoughtful, comprehensive design choices between disciplines can create visually stunning and ecologically spectacular people-oriented spaces while respecting adjacent physical and historical context.

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A significant challenge to the site design was the consideration of current and future stormwater management requirements as the garden continues to evolve and update facilities, along with the desire to keep the site as people oriented as possible. To avoid the need for an at-grade detention basin in a highly visible area, stormwater runoff is ameliorated through the construction of a massive underground cistern to capture rainwater and the use of permeable pavers and pervious surfaces to allow for increased infiltration. Combined with the state-of-the-art, energy efficient learning center and greenhouse facilities, the project achieved LEED Platinum certification in 2020.