The Lakewood Welcome Gardens reimagine liminal ground as inclusive cultural infrastructure rooted in care and collective belonging. Located in historic Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis at the threshold between city and cemetery, the seven-acre project establishes a new district and framework for future growth, while transforming a former maintenance area into an immersive series of gardens. The design re-grounds Lakewood in the garden, breaking from the lawn plan to restore lost layers of ecology and meaning. Through expanded sensory experience and spaces of abundance for humans and nonhumans, the project reconnects people to the site’s history, water, and evolving rituals, welcoming all into a shared landscape of reflection and community.

Lakewood is one of America’s most storied urban cemeteries, founded in 1871 as part of the Garden Cemetery Movement and embedded in Minneapolis’s cultural, ecological, and civic life. As the city’s first public open space, for over 150 years, Lakewood has served as a place of gathering, remembrance, reflection, and celebration. To mark its sesquicentennial and reaffirm its commitment community for the next century, Lakewood undertook the creation of the Welcome Gardens. The project began in spring of 2020 as the pandemic began and visitation doubled as people sought nature, ritual, and connection, recentering the cemetery as critical cultural infrastructure.

Situated on 250 acres between Bde Maka Ska, Lake Harriet and within Dakota homeland, its identity is rooted in water. The grounds contain lakes and filled wetlands tied to larger hydrologic systems within the Grand Rounds. The seven-acre project and former maintenance yard mediates the transition between city and cemetery. The design embraces the cemetery liminal space, organizing movement through sequences of landscape space that accommodate both bodily and emotional needs as they transition in and through the cemetery.

The new district plan disrupts the lawn plan, recentering the garden through new plant layers and lost ecologies. The plan prioritizes movement and pause through accessible paths and spaces. Inspired by the symbolism of knots, representing continuity, ritual, and eternity, the design weaves circulation and water gardens into experiences that reconnect visitors to Lakewood’s identity. The site features native and adaptive, local and regional plants, and educates visitors about ecosystems and native plant use. The planting allows for human and non-human interactions, a signature experience at Lakewood.

Significant site transformation supported the district vision requiring great care to knit the project back to the cemetery. Four experiential and materially rich garden zones define the Welcome Garden District. The Transition Gardens draw visitors from the city through dense perennial landscapes. The Fountain Gardens reorient and welcome visitors with a cascading stone water feature recalling regional lakes and rivers. The Bog Garden restores a wetland ecology, captures roof runoff, and provides custom wood seating immersed in planting. The Family Garden provides a restorative setting for planning, reflection, and staff respite, anchored by a spring-inspired stone water feature.

The project has had a profound impact on Lakewood’s ability to serve the public and their families. As visitation doubled during the pandemic and increased after, they have doubled their staff size. The gardens have provided an infrastructure to build new public programs and host existing ones in spaces better suited to their needs. The staff use the gardens for family meetings, and as restorative spaces for themselves. The spaces host new memorial rituals including a lantern lighting ceremony at the fountain. The project also demonstrates Lakewood’s commitment to horticultural excellence, receiving a Level Two Arboretum accreditation upon opening.

Together, the Lakewood Welcome Gardens reimagine the cemetery as a vital civic landscape, holding grief, ecology, ritual, and community simultaneously. The project demonstrates how landscape architecture can reconnect people to land, memory, and one another, offering a resilient and human centered model for public landscapes and cemeteries nationwide.

Credits:
Lakewood Cemetery (Client)
TEN x TEN (Landscape Architecture)
Snow Kreilich Architects (Architecture)
Miller Dunwiddie (Architecture)
JE Dunn Construction (Contractor)
NTH (Client Representative)
Meyer Borgmann Johnson (MBJ) (Structural Engineering)
Schuler Shook, Pierce Pini + Associates, Inc. (Lighting)
Cause Sustainability (Sustainability Consultant)
True North Consulting Group (Master Plan/Client Advisors)
Emanuelson-Podas (MEP Engineering)
Global Specialty (Fountain Design)
Coastwise Fireguard (Fire Protection)
Kvernstoen, Rönnholm, & Associates (Acoustical Consultant)

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