To meet the growing demand for their educational programs and to better meet their vision, the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont is developing a second campus in Townsend, TN. Equinox was part of a team that developed a Master Plan Concept document to be used for future planning and fundraising purposes. Equinox’s landscape architects and planners participated in multiple multi-day stakeholder workshops and informed site layout, materials, and program elements.
The plan was developed with consideration of the Living Building Challenge, the rigorous green building standard of the International Living Future Institute. The site design focused on restoration and enhancing habitat through a grand restored meadow, an increased riparian buffer, improved ecotones, preservation of the backcountry forest, and innovative stormwater control measures to recharge the aquifer. These features were designed to increase biodiversity, improve water quality, and establish native habitat that is on the decline in Tennessee.
Campus Planning | Conservation Planning | Ecological Restoration | Environmental & Interpretive Graphics | Interpretive and Wayfinding Signage | Land Planning | Landscape Design | Open Space & Park Planning | Sustainable Site Planning