The Steppe Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens is an integral piece of a broader research agenda to build and disseminate knowledge on the plants and ecology of the world’s major steppe regions. Constructed in 2016 as a new central garden, it hosts an extensive collection of steppe flora collected and curated by the Denver Botanic Garden’s team of leading horticulturists.
The purpose of the garden is to support, promote, and extend research on the world’s steppe regions by 1) hosting a diverse living collection of steppe flora and 2) expressing the natural and cultural narratives of steppes and their instructive value as resilient landscapes. The design merges horticultural research on ecology and plant communities with design research on how to construct a range of diverse habitats for plants, and how to create a compelling place for visitors to discover the essential stories of steppe regions.
As a joint effort conducted by a team of horticulturalists and landscape architects, Didier Design Studio led the transformation of the site’s flat ground plane into a sculpted terrain. This involved extensive physical and digital modeling to study the way that landforms interface with solar and wind exposure to create calculated microclimates. We coordinated these efforts with a thoughtful sequencing of the visitor’s experience to create an intimate sense of connection to the steppe landscape.
The Steppe Garden is the winner of the 2016 ASLA Colorado President’s Award of Excellence for Research and Communication.
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