Cove Co-Habitat

Sag Harbor, Long Island, NY
  • ASLA-NY Award, 2015

This residential landscape departs from the typical Hamptons vernacular in favor of an ecological vision that integrates native plants and wildlife habitat together with spaces for human use. SCAPE worked to develop an invasive plant management plan, to reintroduce native plantings, and to reconnect the site with the ecosystems of the Long Island Sound. Spaces are reorganized to reveal the beauty of intertidal ecology and to carve out functional zones for relaxing, entertaining, and engaging with nature. The restored coastal landscape is not a static system, and requires adaptive management over time. Native junipers have been planted to out-compete exotic invasives along the site’s edges, while Phragmites remains present in the landscape not as an impenetrable monoculture, but as a part of a diverse mix of estuarine shrubs such as Groundsel and Bayberry. The strategic management of this landscape by people is essential to preserving biodiversity, through invasive removal, pruning, and selective clearing. Expanded shorebird habitat has been a result, along with the growth of mussels along the shoreline gradient.

Collaborators

Vandeberg Architects