Balkan Ecology Project : The Polyculture Project - Regenerative Landscape Designs - Carla Blackmar, Oxford, Ohio, United States

It's been a great experience running our Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course where we cover how to Design, Build and Manage Polycultures for Landscapes, Gardens, and Farms. It's particularly rewarding getting to know the participants and their projects from all over the world and watching their ideas and designs grow and develop throughout the course and finally be presented to the group. With permission, we'll be sharing some of the final designs from the course with you over the next few months. This week, we're presenting a design from Carla Blackmar based on the development of an outdoor classroom of an elementary school in Ohio, US.

Kramer Elementary School, Oxford Ohio - Regenerative Site Design by Carla Blackmar

The risks of indoor spread of COVID-19 in school settings have exposed the degree to which many US communities have neglected the potential of outdoor public space. My design re-imagines an underutilized elementary school property in small-town Ohio, with a focus on making inviting outdoor spaces for learning while also working to address ecological challenges including habitat loss due to invasive plants and deforestation. I have tried to focus on low-maintenance and resilient design solutions, attempting a design that can be maintained largely by machine with a focus on edible native trees such as paw paw, persimmon, oak and hickory. While this project is unlikely to be built, the principles gained in the course and through the creation of this design will be applied to other local projects, some of which will focus on public space."

Existing and Historic Conditions

Site Constraints

Water: poor soils on top of slope means water runs off instead of soaking in. Water is in wrong place for food forest.
Soils: Possible construction debris/ compaction during construction have resulted in poor soils
Economic: School district has no funding for this project, would need to be paid
for with outside $
Deer: very high deer population will make it difficult to “beat them” to theharvest in the forest. Fencing is prohibitively expensive.
Social: past outdoor education projects on-site have been abandoned.