URBAN LAND REVITALIZATION

The ideal place to begin to "put nature back" and to improve community vitality is on unwanted urban land. Using our ecological design expertise, LandHealth works with urban communities to identify, design, and build projects on underutilized and vacant land.

Our projects empower community activation and ecological restoration, creating value for both people and nature. The result is a story of transformation, as we convert distressed land into inspirational spaces in which the ecosystem and the community flourish.

Our nursery site at 49th/Parkside, originally a former railroad site from the Pennsylvania Railroad until it became a dumping ground, was taken on to become the nursery.

LANDHEALTH NATIVE PLANTS

LandHealth activated a vacant lot in the West Parkside section of West Philadelphia to feature community gardens, grassland, wooded trails, and our own Native Plant Nursery. We provide active engagement with nature to the Philadelphia community through educational, recreational and retail experiences for all.

PLANNING AND DESIGN

LandHealth offers professional services in ecological design, land health planning, and surveying of natural and cultural assets. We study and interpret land for appropriate space usage while planning for long-term ecological vitality. We create spaces that invite human engagement and reflect careful consideration of the legacy we are leaving for those who will come after us.

Whitby Avenue Meadow with Audubon Pennsylvania

Meadow giving way to Japanese stiltgrass

Watershed Stewards, June 2018

Meadow in October

Meadow giving way to Japanese stiltgrass

Whitby Avenue & Cobbs Creek

Cobbs Creek, Philadelphia

LandHealth has partnered with Audubon Pennsylvania on a restoration project within the Cobbs Creek Riparian Corridor, in the Whitby section of Cobbs Creek. LandHealth has created a Natural Resources Inventory by conducting a series of field visits to analyze and assess existing ecological conditions within and adjacent to the area.

LandHealth's "ecological layer" approach involves:

Natural Layers

Site Geology

General Soil Conditions

Present Plant Communities

Ecological Conditions of the Creek

General hydrology within the project area

Observed/signs of wildlife

And Human Layers

Remnant built structures

Visible pollution

Detectable onsite land uses and urban infrastructure

Point sources of stream pollution

Discarded waste, debris

Whitby Avenue Meadow NRI Report pdf download.

KELLY GREEN PROJECT

Planting the Meadow

The Meadow is Growing

Blooming

Planting the Meadow

JOHN B. KELLY SCHOOL MEADOW

Germantown, Philadelphia

LandHealth partnered with the Kelly Green Project to transform a weedy patch of grass into a “pocket meadow” habitat in the front yard of the John B. Kelly Elementary School. Students now have access to a natural landscape in which they can play, learn and reconnect with nature. Meadows serve an important ecological role, though there is little meadow left in Pennsylvania. They support a crucial variety of life at the bottom of the food web, such as soil-inhabiting organisms, insects, and small mammals. Meadows are also a critical resource for pollinating insects such as bees, as well as birds, snakes, and larger mammals. Meadows provide habitat and cover for this wildlife, build soil health, and filter polluted water.

There is great interest in greening schoolyards, yet the process can be costly, and time-consuming. LandHealth Institute offers a cost-effective and impactful approach to schoolyard greening, maximizing educational possibilities and minimizing costs by:

expanding on existing natural features
working with teachers and staff on how to effectively tie outdoor features into curriculum and engage students with the space
enabling long-term experiential educational programming for students of all ages
mobilizing school community to assist with installation, maintenance, and use of space

LAND REVITALIZATION PROJECTS

East Mount Airy, Philadelphia

EMLEN SCHOOL

LandHealth Institute designed and coordinated the installation of a natural playscape and outdoor classroom area in Emlen’s schoolyard – once a shadeless expanse of asphalt. This new amenity acts as an outdoor classroom as well as a creative playscape. This project showcases what can be accomplished with a budget of $5,000 and a dedicated team of volunteers.

Philadelphia

URBAN ARBORETA

Urban Arboreta is an innovative and community-driven model for transforming vacant lots into hybrid spaces for nursery production, green entrepreneurship and neighborhood use, improving the ecological, social, and economic health of a neighborhood by serving as a platform for community-based job training, local economic development and neighborhood engagement.

Roxborough, Philadelphia

W.B. SAUL HIGH SCHOOL

Working with the Community Design Collaborative of Philadelphia, LandHealth helped create a master plan for W.B. Saul High School. LandHealth designed an interpretive trail that weaves together outdoor educational elements to enrich students’ experience on campus, and piloted the ProFESS program there.

Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

BRYN ATHYN MEADOW

Bryn Athyn College, a small liberal arts college, features a ten-acre meadow that had little species diversity and was inaccessible to students. LandHealth reimagined the meadow and rain garden as vibrant amenities in an effort to increase biodiversity and increase its educational value for the campus, transforming the space into a diverse bog garden.

South Philadelphia

PLAYGROUNDS FOR USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge, conceived by Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra), curated by Lucia Sanroman, and managed by Philadelphia Mural Arts’ Restored Spaces Initiative, was a temporary installation on a vacant lot in South Philly which served as a platform to share collective and individual knowledge.

LandHealth Institute was invited to collaborate with Restored Spaces and CohStra to re-envision and reuse litter and debris on the lot as cultural artifacts, design features, and educational tools around which LHI developed and executed a series of community workshops.

Jamison, Pennsylvania

JAMISON ELEMENTARY

This suburban school has taken great initiative to implement a variety of sustainable elements on its campus to enrich student's appreciation and knowledge of their environment. Student gardens watered by rain barrels, gathering spaces made from reused materials, stormwater management features, and rich nature trails dot the property. LandHealth devised a master plan to help teachers to bring their students outside and incorporate these features into the curriculum, thereby unifying elements from the rich natural landscape into a more meaningful educational experience.

Armonk, New York

LOUIS CALDER CENTER - FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

Twenty five miles north of Fordham University's main campus lies the Louis Calder Center: a 115-acre field station used by graduate students of the University conducting biological and ecological research. The Center lacks community awareness, as well as the diverse habitats necessary for ecological research. LandHealth Institute provides master planning services to increase the Center's visibility in the community through events and landscaping. LandHealth is also strategizing methods to increase habitat value and diversity in the area.

Gladwyne, Pennsylvania

GLADWYNE JEWISH MEMORIAL CEMETERY

Forgotten for over half a century, this historic cemetery-turned-forest has become a stunning landscape. Just barely escaping development on a number of occasions, the cemetery has been taken over by the Friends of the Gladwyne Jewish Memorial Cemetery, who hired LandHealth Institute to create a master plan for the cemetery’s future. The plan examines strategies to allow the public to access the site, as well as provide a safe, inspirational experience that capitalizes on the enchanting natural beauty that has overtaken the cemetery in the decades since its abandonment.