Ripple Park by Loma

The Oldenburg Münsterland is an agricultural region in northern Germany. The building task was to transform the land surrounding the historic manor house of the family estate into a spacious parkland. At first glance, a two-hectare spruce reforestation from the 1970s caught the eye, occupying the entire eastern area in front of the manor house. At second glance, however, a very beautiful stand of mighty oaks could be seen growing into this dense spruce forest. The removal of the spruce forest and thus the exposure of the historic oak stand were the first steps in the conversion.

In addition to the exposure of the valuable tree layer, another “rediscovered” element became an important starting point for the further procedure: In the directly adjoining area of the property, which was not affected by the land clearing of the 1960s and 1970s, historical boundary walls could still be clearly seen: these linear boundary markings originate in the region around Visbek from the 18th and 19th centuries and are already measured in the original map as knee- to hip-high walls.

The thematic continuation and spatial reinterpretation of the discovered ramparts was further developed into an important design element in the soil layer: as a demarcation from the surrounding agricultural areas as well as for the spatial concentration of the central, lower-lying lawn bowl. The embankments with their graduated height were directed between the oak trees in order not to damage the sensitive oak roots. Therefore, we generated the exact position of the wall lines with the help of digital tools (fluid flow simulation).

The fluid module is part of the 3D software Maya. Based on the surveyor data with the location of the tree stand, we were able to digitally simulate the design concept and transfer it to the construction phase on site.
The “ripple park” gets its reduced form from two strong, three-dimensional elements: Old large trees and the rediscovery of topography in contemporary landscape architecture.