The Greenway System is a serial sculptural meditation on earthwork.  Set within over 150 acres of native prairie and woodlands, 11 retention and detention basins are conceived, each carefully situated within the grading and form of the site.  In each basin, monolithic dry-stacked limestone walls mark 2-, 15- and 100-year storms while stabilizing slopes for emergent wetlands. The site comes together to form a monumental public artwork from the engineered necessity of climate adaption. The system is at once practical in mitigation, and a realm for contemplation and recreation. Over time, flooding will weather the stone, and the shifting water lines will leave their mark.  The design makes what is invisible, visible. It awakens people to the changing planet-- alternative infrastructure adapted for a climate-resilient world. 

The city of Omaha encompasses over 140 square miles.  Within this large expanse, the site now known as Heartwood Preserve was 500-acres of farmland, an island surrounded by suburban sprawl.   In 2015, Applied Underwriters Insurance selected the site for their future headquarters, with the desire to bring a site-specific approach to the property.  Although the headquarter building itself will rest on only 39 acres, the company sought to build a sustainable and denser development, one that would honor the agricultural history of the site and benefit the employees, neighbors and residents of Omaha.

The detention basins were initially conceived by solely as an engineering requirement - as unremarkable ditches pushed against the western boundary of the project.   With the landscape architects now at the lead, a new and closely collaborative planning process with the engineers was initiated to process everything from permit drawings to construction documents.  Once on board, the landscape team planned for a more integrated approach, a hybrid condition of infrastructure as art, designed to mitigate the potential for flooding while creating a parkland of wonders for the community. 

The design establishes green space as a vital public amenity and public right. Over fourteen miles of universally accessible trails extend throughout the 500 acres of the larger project and into Omaha’s “Paths of Discovery” network. Linking into both the West Papio Trail and the 144th Street Trail, these paths add continuity into Omaha’s larger multi-modal trail network, used by bike riders, families, and runners.  Access to the trail system is free and open to the public, allowing families of all income levels to exercise and experience a native landscape all but lost to a region heavily transformed by urban and agricultural sprawl. Within the greenways, select areas include firepits, shelters, picnic areas, amphitheaters, playgrounds and council rings, creating opportunities for all to have a memorable experience in nature. The Greenway System aims to strengthen existing ecosystems, protect agricultural economies, and offer the people of Omaha a new way of living. The Heartwood Development is walkable and condensed in scale. Adjacent residences, cultural amenities, stores, and businesses are integrated with and connected to the Greenway landscape.

The new basin network has a capacity to store an estimated 55 million gallons / 169 acre-feet of stormwater runoff.  In doing so, the greenway system prevents erosion, detains water, recharges aquifers and provides flood protection to adjacent properties and farmland.  These water basins create new ecologies and in turn generate opportunities for life – migratory birds and other passing animals establish homes and fortify ecological networks. Oaks, cottonwood, eastern redbuds, and sumacs change with the seasons. Native birds such as the Western Meadowlark and Sharptailed Grouse nest in tall meadow grasses.

Just a fraction of Nebraska’s original historic ecology remains - it was destroyed for the sake of agricultural production. This ecological loss mirrored the loss of cultural traditions rooted in the land. The project restores historic prairie and wetland ecologies, offering habitat for native animal species. The landscape uses elemental local materials. Limestone, tall and short grass native prairies and woodlands create a dynamic interplay and animate spaces. The landscape is rooted in a specific, powerful and historically particular sense of place.

The project harkens Nebraska’s patrimony as the birthplace of the Arbor Day movement – when an estimated 1 million trees were planted in order to mitigate the harsh climatic extremes of the state to allow for human flourishing. With more than 10,000 trees projected to be planted, embedded nurseries within the greenways provide replacement stock and opportunities for the community to plant their own memorial saplings.

Heartwood extends the role of landscape as infrastructure into the current era of a transforming climate. Throughout the site, art and natural elements are fused in both monumental and intimate ways. The monolithic limestone blocks that compose the basins, indicate datums of changing inundation volumes. This ability to mark time can help shape memory, foster awareness and connection to the natural world – capturing the constant and increasingly seismic changes that the community might be otherwise unaware of. Heartwood aspires to build climate change infrastructure that might help people see what is being done to our planet.

Construction began in spring 2019.