We are delighted to be in the company of some of the best new designs of 2021. Thanks to The Architect’s Newspaper and an esteemed jury, the Arjay Miller Arboretum North Pond at Ford World Headquarters was recognized as Best of Design in Landscape for 2021.

“This is the type of landscape project that is not looking for formal fireworks or ostentatious originality but defines—with controlled design ambitions—a sensitive and intelligent approach to a ubiquitous problem: the mowed-lawn-next-to-highway landscape.”—jury member Wonne Ickx⁠
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The expansion and replanning of the Arjay Miller Arboretum delineates a new environmental model that expands the company’s focus on human health and wellness. As part of an analysis of the 200-acre Dearborn campus, a 15-acre portion of the existing arboretum was transformed from manicured lawn into a thriving meadow that sequesters carbon, filters stormwater, and provides a home for birds and pollinator species. The genesis of the project was to control stormwater in an area that frequently flooded. The site is reforested with 280 new trees that reflect the variety of the Midwest region and planted in flowing groves across the site. Understory planting knits together low maintenance meadow grasses and perennials, with new detention ponds to collect stormwater. Apiaries are nestled among a quilted pattern of a dozen different seed and plug mixes that correspond to the different topographic ecological conditions of the site.

Click here to read more or click here to learn more about the project.

Photos by John D’Angelo.