The title names a 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Student Awards Honor Award exhibition and design-research project, not a new construction scheme or a complete survey of Dan Kiley’s work. Zhen Tong, a Pennsylvania State University student, studied 21 Kiley landscapes in Bartholomew County, Indiana, then used archival drawings, digital analysis, physical models and more than 30 drawing series to show how planting arrangements organize views, movement, canopy and outdoor rooms.
The Miller Garden and North Christian Church are the project’s most useful case studies. Both were designed by Kiley in collaboration with architects, but one is a private residential landscape and the other a church setting. Reading their rows, allées, grids, bosques and woodland as spatial devices explains how trees can construct a sequence of rooms without walls—and why later stewardship must be considered when interpreting the original design.
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What the Bartholomew County project actually studied
Research begun in spring 2015 examined Kiley’s landscape work in and around Columbus, Indiana. The ASLA award description presents the work as an exhibition and analytical investigation: archival information was converted into scaled drawings, models and diagrams so that changing plant forms could be read more clearly. It was not a field experiment measuring shade, circulation or ecological performance, and it was not a monograph covering every Kiley landscape.
The project analyzed 21 Kiley projects in the county. Its exhibition included large models of the Miller Garden and North Christian Church, typology models and more than 30 illustrative drawing series. More than 2,000 model trees were twisted by hand for the installation (ASLA, 2016). Those figures describe the production of the student exhibition; they are not independent measurements of the built landscapes.
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Why planting became the project’s lens
Buildings are usually legible in plans, elevations and photographs. Planting is less stable: trees grow, canopies overlap, species change and seasonal views disappear or reappear. Tong’s drawings and models isolate arrangement—where a tree sits in relation to another tree, a path, a building or an opening—so a viewer can see planting as a three-dimensional structure rather than as a list of species.
That approach matters to anyone working with landscape construction or preservation. A row can mark direction, a grid can establish a field, and a woodland edge can frame a destination even when no masonry boundary exists. The student project argues for these readings through representation; it does not claim that one pattern automatically produces a measured social, ecological or climatic result.
Planting typologies: a vocabulary for how trees shape space
The award project names configurations including one tree/row, two/tree allée, bosque, grid, quincunx, hedgerow and forest. Its narrative calls these “five typologies” while listing more than five categories, so the safest reading is that this is the project’s analytical vocabulary, not a universal taxonomy.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems| Configuration | Spatial idea the project can make visible | What to look for on site |
|---|---|---|
| One tree/row | A linear marker or directional trace | Repeated trunks that pull the eye along an edge, drive or axis |
| Two/tree allée | A framed route or outdoor room | Parallel lines of trees forming a processional approach |
| Bosque | A clustered canopy with filtered views | Regular or loosely ordered trees read as a grove rather than a single line |
| Grid | Measured field and repeated module | Spacing that remains legible across an orchard, lawn or court |
| Quincunx | Diagonal rhythm within a repeated field | Staggered five-point units that produce depth and oblique views |
| Hedgerow | Edge, screen or directional wall | Continuous planted mass that controls what is revealed or concealed |
| Forest | Immersion, enclosure and larger-scale background | Layered trunks and canopy with less emphasis on individual spacing |
These labels help describe form, spacing and perception. They should not be used as promises about maintenance cost, habitat value or user behavior unless those outcomes are separately documented.
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Miller Garden: a residential sequence of ordered rooms
The Miller House and Garden in Columbus was designed and constructed from 1953 to 1957 by the Office of Dan Kiley in close collaboration with architects Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, interior designer Alexander Girard, and clients Irwin and Xenia Miller. The landscape covers 13 acres, according to The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
The house has a strong geometric order, but the landscape does not simply repeat a symmetrical building plan. Instead, planting and ground surfaces create a sequence of outdoor rooms. The project’s typology drawings provide a way to understand that sequence as a progression of spatial conditions rather than as a single diagram.
Approach and arrival
An entrance drive flanked by a horse-chestnut allée establishes a clear approach. Two parallel lines of trees can make arrival directional: they compress attention toward the house while maintaining an open route beneath the canopy. In a construction drawing, the important information is not only the tree species but also the centerline, spacing, clearances and relationship to the drive.
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A gridded apple orchard introduces a field condition. Repetition distributes trees across an area, allowing the eye to read both individual trunks and the larger module. A honey-locust allée defines a major axis elsewhere in the garden, giving the site a second kind of order: the orchard reads as a matrix, while the allée reads as a line that directs movement and view.
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Ground plane, meadow and river edge
Crushed stone, a managed meadow and woodland toward the river extend the sequence beyond tree geometry. The crushed-stone surface provides a visually quiet plane against which trunks and shadows register. The meadow opens the view and changes with season and management. Woodland supplies a deeper, less granular background. Together these conditions show how planting, surface and distance work as a connected spatial system.
Stewardship means the designed landscape is not frozen in 1957
The Cultural Landscape Foundation reports that landscape architect John Curtis renewed plant material in 1999. A failed redbud grove was replaced with crab apple trees, and the honey-locust allée was restored. The property became a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art took official ownership in 2009. Consequently, photographs or models that represent Kiley’s design intent should not be treated as proof that every surviving planting is unchanged from the original installation.
The Columbus Indiana Architectural Archives holds a drawing set and some photographs, while Newfields/Indianapolis Museum of Art is identified as the repository for the primary archival collection documenting design, construction and maintenance. That distinction matters when a preservation or construction decision requires original specifications rather than a later image.
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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →North Christian Church: shaping the approach to a civic building
North Christian Church is an Eero Saarinen building with a landscape designed by Dan Kiley. SAH Archipedia identifies the Kiley landscape as 13 acres of sculpted parkland. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes Kiley’s concept as controlling how the church is viewed by shaping the approach through a sequence of ordered outdoor rooms.
The program differs sharply from the Miller Garden. A church landscape receives a congregation and visitors, stages a public approach and frames a prominent civic building. Its planting is therefore read at a larger communal scale, even where the same underlying devices—rows, groves, framed views and open rooms—appear.
Architecture in relation to surroundings
Saarinen’s explanation of the collaboration remains a useful key: “I see architecture not as the building alone but in the building in relation to its surroundings.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation reproduces this sentence from a 1961 interview. In North Christian Church, the landscape is not leftover space around an object. The approach, the planted rooms and the building’s changing visibility are part of one composition.
A dated change in institutional use
The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s indexed listing reports that the church ceased serving as a house of worship in 2022 and that the congregation gifted the building to the county public library system in 2024. Those are dated status reports, not confirmation of the site’s present operating arrangements. Anyone planning a visit, survey or construction activity should verify current ownership, access and use directly before relying on them.
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Miller Garden and North Christian Church compared
| Comparison axis | Miller Garden | North Christian Church |
|---|---|---|
| Primary program | Private residence and garden for the Miller family | Church and civic landscape organized around a Saarinen building |
| Documented scale | 13 acres | 13 acres of sculpted parkland |
| Key planting readings | Horse-chestnut arrival allée, gridded apple orchard, honey-locust axis, meadow and river woodland | Ordered outdoor rooms and planted approach that controls views of the church |
| Relationship to architecture | Landscape extends the house’s geometric order without copying its symmetry | Landscape and building are conceived as a single approach-and-setting composition |
| Documented later change | Plant renewal and allée restoration in 1999; National Historic Landmark designation in 2000; museum ownership in 2009 | Reported end of worship use in 2022 and gift to the county public library system in 2024 |
| Evidence available for the student analysis | Archival drawings, photographs and modeled site information; primary collection held by Newfields/Indianapolis Museum of Art | Archival and site documentation interpreted through models and drawings; SAH Archipedia and Cultural Landscape Foundation provide context |
The comparison is about spatial logic, not a claim that the two landscapes perform identically. Residential privacy, ceremonial arrival, public circulation and later institutional change produce different demands even when a typology label is shared.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the student exhibition converted archives into analysis
- Gather archival evidence. Aerial images, blueprints, sections, sketches and photographs supplied information about alignments, spacing, grade and canopy.
- Build a digital base. AutoCAD and Rhino were used to develop scaled site models and organize the information for comparison.
- Model individual trees. Physical tree models represented species form, canopy and spatial arrangement rather than treating every tree as an identical symbol.
- Test typologies at multiple scales. Separate models isolated rows, allées, groves, grids and other configurations; larger models reunited those devices within each site.
- Draw changing conditions. Series addressed shade, seasonal change, growth, canopy competition, circulation and residual space, making time and overlap part of the reading.
- Exhibit the evidence. Large site models and more than 30 drawing series allowed viewers to move between an overall plan and the fine-grained behavior of planted space.
For a designer or builder, the important lesson is methodological: a planting plan can be read simultaneously as geometry, section, movement diagram and time-based system. The exhibition made those layers explicit without claiming that diagrams replace field observation or maintenance records.
What the typologies can—and cannot—tell you
Useful conclusions
- Rows and allées can be analyzed as directional devices that frame a route or view.
- Grids and quincunxes can be read as spacing systems that establish rhythm, depth and diagonal relationships.
- Bosques, hedgerows and forests can be compared by degrees of enclosure, filtering and background.
- Combining typologies with sections and seasonal drawings reveals how canopy growth changes the apparent room.
- Site context matters: the same arrangement carries different meaning at a private house and a civic church.
Claims the project does not establish
- It does not provide a statistical study proving that one typology improves comfort, biodiversity, circulation or property value.
- It does not establish current plant condition at either site.
- It does not show that every tree represented in a model survives in the built landscape.
- It does not turn the listed categories into an industry-wide classification standard.
Using this history in preservation or new construction
Start with the intended spatial relationship, not a generic tree schedule. Identify the axis, room boundary, framed view or background that a planting group is meant to produce. Then check archival drawings and maintenance documentation before selecting replacement material. The Miller Garden’s 1999 renewal demonstrates why matching an original species name is not the same as restoring an original spatial effect.
Document existing conditions with a current survey: tree locations, trunk size, canopy spread, grades, paving, drainage, utilities and access routes. Compare that survey with historic plans, but mark uncertainty where records are incomplete. For North Christian Church, confirm present ownership and public access before scheduling work because the reported institutional transition may affect approvals, insurance, protection measures and operating hours.
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Finally, record the planting as it changes. A row that is precise at installation becomes a canopy volume; a meadow depends on management; a woodland edge advances or retreats. Photographing, measuring and updating the drawings over time preserves the design logic more reliably than assuming a historic plan remains self-explanatory.
Why these two landscapes remain instructive
Kiley’s Bartholomew County work shows planting operating as architecture without becoming architecture in the conventional sense. At the Miller Garden, arrival allées, orchard grids, an axial grove, meadow and river woodland make a residential property unfold as linked rooms. At North Christian Church, the ordered approach calibrates when and how a civic building appears. Tong’s exhibition made those relationships legible through models and drawings, while the sites’ later stewardship reminds us that landscape design is a continuing process rather than a fixed image.
The most defensible takeaway is therefore specific: rows, allées, grids, bosques, quincunxes, hedgerows and forests are analytical tools for describing how planted structure organizes space. They become meaningful only when read against program, architecture, movement, growth and maintenance—and when current conditions are verified instead of inferred from a historic representation.
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