The Nina Mason Pulliam EcoLab encourages exploration of science and stewardship of the environment.
The Nina Mason Pulliam EcoLab is a prime destination in central Indiana for environmental science experiences, stewardship activities, and undergraduate education and research; and a recognized leader in providing standards-based, interactive, life science education experiences for Pre K-College learners at Marian University, throughout Indiana, and across the United States.
Our story starts 100 years ago with Jens Jensen: the renowned landscape architect and pioneer in the field of Restoration Ecology. In the 1900s, using European plants cut into shapes and patterns was the norm. His work in promoting “The American Landscape” by using native plants helped raise awareness of the importance and beauty of native habitats. His work, alongside famous ecologists of the era, formed several of the principles that restoration ecologists use today. Thanks to Jensen’s diligent work and memory, we stand today as one of the oldest known restoration projects in the world.
100 years later, the EcoLab carries on his legacy through our restoration efforts. With his blueprints in one hand and a shovel in the other, we work tirelessly to bring about his dream for our little natural gem in an urban city. Jensen taught many landscapers his philosophies that helped sow the seeds of this major science field. We teach others his methods that we’ve perfected through hands-on work and experiences in nature. Like Jensen, we want to build a community of people that feel a connection to our native habitat.
Our future lies in your hands. Just like any ecosystem, we cannot completely control the future. However, we can take small daily acts of love and care to help it grow into the beautiful and functional landscapes we long to see. We pass our knowledge on to you, our students, colleagues, and community, in hopes that you are inspired to care for whatever plot of land you may have. Just like Jens Jensen restored a native habitat at the EcoLab 100 years ago that lives on today, we can also impact future generations through our good work. Nature comes and goes with time and season, but the memories it imparts stays true forever. Let’s make these memories possible for all generations.
"Our native landscape is our home, the little world we live in, where we are born and where we play, where we grow up and finally where are … laid to eternal rest. It speaks of the distant past and carries our life into the tomorrow. To keep this pure and unaltered is a sacred heritage, and noble task of the highest cultural value."
In the early 1900s the property was part of the Riverdale estate, a country estate built by James Allison, an Indianapolis entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Indianapolis 500.
The grounds were designed by master landscape architect, Jens Jensen, known as the "Prophet of the Prairie" for his use of native plants and Midwestern imagery.
Many of Jensen’s original landscape features can still be seen in the EcoLab including stone bridges, spring-water cisterns, and the original trails.
The Allison Mansion anchors the 64-acre Riverdale estate. The exterior of the mansion, designed by Indianapolis architect Herbert Bass, is an eclectic blend of early Prairie School and Lombardy Villa architecture and is located on the top of a bluff overlooking the meadow and lakes below. Dubbed the “House of Wonders,” the Allison Mansion contained many state-of-the-art conveniences including an elevator, a central vacuum system, a telephone intercom system, automatically lighted closets, pumped-in ice water, an indoor swimming pool, and the sophisticated indirect lighting systems favored by Frank Lloyd Wright.
James Allison hired William Price, of the Philadelphia firm of Price and McLanahan, to complete the interior. The interior is lavishly designed in traditional European designs. The 40' x 40' great foyer is done in a high Renaissance style with elaborately carved Circassian walnut woodwork (now extinct) and a one-ton German silver chandelier. The library is designed in the Gothic style, with gilded carved leather panels and a Rookwood fireplace. The small reception room reflects the era of Louis XVI and features embroidered silk wall coverings. The music room features a delicately carved white mahogany organ screen, and the card room on the lower level has a finely detailed hand-painted gilded mural depicting The Three Musketeers in the form of James Allison, Carl Fisher, and Frank Wheeler. Finally, the aviary is a large glass-enclosed space executed in white Italian marble with intricately detailed balustrades and newel posts and a Tiffany-style art glass ceiling. To produce this wide range of styles, Allison imported both materials and craftsmen from Europe.
Our native landscape is our home, the little world we live in, where we are born and where we play, where we grow up and finally where we are…laid to eternal rest. It speaks of the distant past and carries our life into the tomorrow. To keep this pure and unadulterated is a sacred heritage, a noble task of the highest cultural value.
About 30 acres of the NMP EcoLab is part of the Riverdale estate designed by Jens Jensen for James A. Allison (one of the founders of the Indianapolis 500) in 1912. Jensen designed several parks in Chicago as well as hundreds of private estates. He is well known for using mainly native plants in natural groupings in his plantings. The gravel trails in the NMP EcoLab are built on top of Jensen's original roads and many of the structures such as limestone stairs, benches, bridges, and 1/2 moon pools are still intact.
Jensen was born in Denmark in 1860 and immigrated to Chicago in 1884. In Chicago he worked as a street sweeper for the Chicago Parks Department and also at a local nursery. In his nursery job and in trips out of the city he learned to appreciate the native flora of the Chicago area. He was particularly fond of the prairie landscape.
For some reason, Jensen was allowed to design and plant a corner of Union park in Chicago. He used the opportunity to implement what he called the "American Garden." In this planting he used all native plant materials, a design element that would become characteristic of his landscape designs.
Olmsted, designer of Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, was also interested in drawing folks from the city out into a natural environment. He was not tied, however, to native plant species or natural plant groupings. Naturalized European or Asian species were often used in his designs.
Being very drawn to the broad horizons of the near-Chicago prairie landscape, Jensen was one of the founders of the "prairie school" of landscape architecture. This type of design emphasized and accentuated the repeated horizontal lines of the prairie landscape. Notice in the prairie picture, left, the repeated layered horizons: the grass, the shrubs, the trees, and the sky.
Jensen eventually designed several parks in Chicago's west district including Columbus, Douglas, Humboldt, and Garfield. Notice the repeated horizontal lines in the flagstone and layers of vegetation in the photographs at the right. Also notice the native vegetation and natural plant groupings.
Jensen was fired from his Chicago Parks Department job during a political upheaval and spent much of his design career designing estates for the rich, such as the Fair Lane estate for Henry Ford in Michigan and the estates of James Allison, Carl Fisher, and Frank Wheeler, three of the four founders of the Indianapolis 500. Jensen designed hundreds of estates but, as a social reformer, he always felt "it was a great loss or tragedy that I am always doing these estates for these rich…I shouldn’t be doing these places, I should be doing great regional parks…That is the meaning in my life."
Features of a Jensen design:
The player’s green or outdoor amphitheater built for Allison by Jensen currently in the Marian University EcoLab is pictured at right. The stage is on the rise between the two statue pedestals. Imagine watching a performance as the sun went down behind the cedars.
James Allison chose master landscape architect Jens Jensen to design the grounds for his 64-acre estate, including the location of his residence sited prominently at the top of the bluff along Crooked Creek. The residence, designed by Indianapolis architect Herbert Bass, began construction in 1911 and took three years to complete at a reported cost of $2 million. Impressed by the design of his neighbor Frank Wheeler's newly constructed mansion, Allison fired Herbert Bass and hired Wheeler's architect, William Price, of the Philadelphia firm of Price and McLanahan, to complete the interior. Dubbed the "House of Wonders," the Allison Mansion contained many state-of-the-art conveniences including an elevator, a central vacuum system, a telephone intercom system, automatically lighted closets, pumped-in ice water, an indoor swimming pool, and sophisticated indirect lighting systems.
The exterior of the house is an eclectic blend of early Prairie School and Lombardy Villa architecture. The interior is lavishly designed in traditional European designs. For example, the foyer is done in a high Renaissance style, the library is Gothic, and the reception room reflects the era of Louis XVI. To produce this wide range of styles, Allison imported both materials and craftsmen from Europe.
The Allison family retained the estate until 1936, when it was sold to the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Indiana.
Cold Spring School (CSS) is our K-8, Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) neighbor to the North. The CSS grounds contain a portion of the Riverdale estate and several acres of riparian lowland forest along Crooked Creek. As an environmental magnet school, CSS incorporates environmental learning opportunities throughout the curriculum from kindergarten to eighth grade.The Environmental Resource Center at CSS is a location from which all IPS schools can have access to books, field guides, equipment, and other resources necessary for exploring a natural environment. The Environmental Resource Center is also a portal for the use of the Cold Spring School natural area and the Nina mason Pulliam EcoLab by other school groups.
The Amos W. Butler Chapter
Mission: To promote the enjoyment and stewardship of the birds of central Indiana.
From the very beginning, the Amos W. Butler Chapter of the National Audubon Society has been a great partner in the EcoLab project. Through their initial and continuing financial support, thousands of plant plugs and tree and shrub seedlings have been installed by thousands of volunteers, young and old. The membership of the Chapter has also “adopted” the NMP EcoLab as a special project for which they provide many hours of volunteer help annually.
Amos W. Butler Audubon has a long and successful history of championing the cause of birds in central Indiana. They provide lots of field trip and workshop activities for the general public, have monthly slide show programs at the Holliday Park Nature Center, an annual banquet, and other fun and educational programs. They also advocate for bird conservation through donations of funds, expertise, and the strong Audubon name.
Indiana Native Plant and Wildflower Society offers the Letha’s Youth Outdoors Fund to connect school age kids to the wonders of nature. The Fund provides financial assistance to groups for field trips to nature sites (covers transportation costs and naturalists fees) OR to promote youth initiated projects/activities that connect kids with nature. The simple application is found and can be submitted online at: Letha'’s Youth Outdoors Fund. There is no deadline; response time is generally within two weeks. Payment is made once an invoice is received, and is very prompt. (Exceptions may be discussed if the applying group does not have upfront funds). We are especially interested in assisting groups that reach out to those youth who have the least access to the natural environment, and ones where hands on learning can occur. We do not fund recreational outings. We can supply information about appropriate local sites, and possibly help by providing naturalist leadership for the outing.
I am convinced that most Americans have no idea what a decent forest looks like. The only way to tell them is to show them.” - Aldo Leopold
The same could be said for wetlands. Wetlands are essential to watershed health and water quality by providing habitat for wetland species, modulating flood events, and filtering pollutants. Unfortunately 85 percent of wetlands in Indiana have been converted to other uses, and, although public perception of wetlands is improving, wetlands are still widely regarded as unattractive, stagnant breeding grounds for pestilence and mosquitoes. This perception comes from a lack of exposure to, and education about the functions of natural wetlands.
With the help of its partners and funders, the NMP EcoLab is helping to change that perception. The EcoLab provides an opportunity for the Indiana adult community, K-12 school groups, and Marian College students to experience native Indiana in the 55-acre wetlands and lowland forest on the Marian College campus just a few miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.
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Notice of Nondiscrimination
Marian University does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin, age or disabilities in the selection of administrative personnel, faculty and staff, and students.
*Placement rates are gathered from data collected from graduates within six months of graduation.
Students may make a complaint to the Indiana Commission of Higher Education.
Marian University is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis, Oldenburg, Indiana.
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