in.site:architecture
ANT FINALS2.jpg

the ANT

the ANT at Letchworth State Park

Winner of the 2022 Upstate ASLA Honor Award. Designed in partnership with TWMLA and Earthplay.

The Autism Nature Trail, or ANT, began as an In. Site: Architecture napkin sketch at the request of three women who would go on to become the ANT Aunts - Loren Penman, Gail Serventi and Susan Herrnstein. Their goal? To visualize the possibilities of a trail designed to serve those on the spectrum.

Seven years later, that vision has been turned into an engaging one-mile long trail with stations that help orient visitors - especially special-needs visitors - on a sensory journey to explore nature at their own pace. The stations provide opportunities to be alone or with others, with clear signposts, repeated motifs and materials.

Our Trailhead Pavilion is the beginning and ending point - a modern yet familiar “gable” to shelter, stage, plan and prepare groups or individuals. Upon return, visitors pass through the Celebration Station portion where they can deposit their pocketed finds and leave their marks in chalk.

A short walk into the woods, a Sensory Station is composed of two “brackets”, sheltered shelves on raised platforms that speak to each other across a stretch of forest floor where visitors can seek, collect and sort natural materials.

Each station’s design derives from the natural character of its place along the trail.

  • The Sensory Station’s shelves echo the branching spruce trees

  • A serpentine Sunshine Slope path takes advantage of a small clearing

  • The Meadow Run and Climb adds topography and challenges to a pre-developed larger clearing to enhance visitors’ gross motor skill development

  • The Reflection Knoll - located in the quietest, farthest point and the darkest coniferous woods - provides a circle of stones for observation or retreat.

  • A Music Circle in a natural clearing contains the raised “yin” of a stage juxtaposed against the “yang” for the audience, with natural instruments

  • A Playful Path which is really a half-dozen different natural paving textures forming interweaving loops; and

  • The Design Zone, a culminating space where visitors can choose to participate in the making and remaking of the station itself.

For more information or to visit: www.autismnaturetrail.com

Landscape Architect: Trowbridge Wolf Michaels (also renderings and autumn photos)

Play Consultant: Earthplay

Engineer: WSP

Photography: Tim Wilkes Photography

General Contractor: Titan Development