Church and School Outdoor Learning Center Landscaping
St. Edward’s in Mackville Hires Lowney’s to Create Special Outdoor Classroom Space
Months of building that followed years of planning came to fruition in August 2024 when St. Edward’s church and school (officially called St. Edward the Confessor of Mackville) blessed its new event and prayer space in a ceremony conducted by Fr. Robert Chinnapan.
The grade school children and teachers were on hand, and dozens of parishioners also attended, including Don Coonen and his wife Pat. Don designed and built the steel cross above the fire, largely at the urging of Pat, who also served on the committee that planned the space.
Joe Lowney calls this one of his favorite projects ever, and that’s saying something since he’s created hundreds of them in almost 30 years in the landscaping business. Lead designer Christine Kosiorek and sales designer Mike Schumacher were instrumental in the amazing space also, while the stone craftsmen and carpenters that come with a Lowney’s project also played key roles.
Planning an Outdoor School and Prayer Space
When you want to create both a hardscape (stone) permanent outdoor area, and include softscape (plants and trees), you will need a contractor that can handle all of those specialties. There are schools through the Fox Valley area that have outdoor classrooms, one of them being at Einstein Middle School, which uses the space for classes about growing plants and trees, in addition to having other areas of schooling utilize the space, like the art curriculum, which uses it for its Garden of Arts Festival.
This particular project is used by not only a school but also the parish and its youth education programs. Being a prayer space, obviously there are religious elements brought in, a highlight of which is the cross in the pavement coming off the fireplace, above which is an actual metal cross.
If you’re planning such a space, be prepared to bring together a lot of committees. St Ed’s created an actual committee just to work with Lowney’s to manage this build.
“That committee was a gathering of all the different areas of the parish,” said Pat Coonen. That included the church, the school, the Knights of Columbus, and the Buildings & Grounds Committee. “Everybody contributed how they would use the space and we tried to incorporate as many of those ideas as we could,” Pat Coonen said.
Some of the areas of the community that will use the space:
- Young Adult Bible Study
- New Evangelization classes
- Adult Education classes
They’ll also use the whiteboards to show movies and other educational and entertaining things.
Fr. Chinnapan is excited for the entire parish because the space can be utilized for so many things. This is a parish known for its events like the tractor pull, and the uses at the tractor pull will be extensive. “Gathering, events, and our Faith Formation teams,” he listed. “Young adults were the main focus. We don’t have a lot of office space, in the summertime, we used to gather in the parking lot. So we thought, “What if we have a nice place for the young adults? Because we want them involved in the church.’ And it was a school playground before so we left some space for the kids.”
The area is also perfect for traditions like Palm Sunda and Easter Vigil, which are meant to start outside and process inside the church. “The fire will be a very cool place to start our Easter Vigil,” he said. “In fact, that’s one of the main reasons we wanted the fireplace.”
For those familiar, Fr. Chinnapan noted that the build was supported by the diocese’s one by One Campaign.
Elements of This Appleton Church Outdoor Project
This space utilizes a large among of Belgard pavers. The fireplace is made out of Unilock Copthorne. Lowney’s uses Heartland pergolas and has two carpenters on staff to build them. The torches are by Tempest.
Among the plants and grasses used are Feather Reed Karl Foerster grass and Prairie Dropseed Tara grass, plus boxwoods and daylilies, hostas, and hydrangeas, and spireas and ninebarks.
A Designer’s Prayer
Thoughts on Designing for God by Lowney’s lead designer Christine Kosiorek.
“All praise, glory and honor be to our Lord and Savior, Amen. There is no part of the project that the Lord’s hand did not direct to come to fruition. And it started many years ago on a sunny day when I went to Blue Mound State Park. I sat on a bench on top of the mound overlooking the land to West, I took notice of the shade the clouds were casting onto the land. So the clouds were slowly moving through the skies and the shadows were slowly moving over the land, the two completely in sync. The words from the Lord’s Prayer echoed in my head “On Earth As it is in Heaven.” So the clouds representing heaven and all that should be in heaven and the shade they cast onto the Earth representing how things on Earth that should be in sync with Heaven crossed across the landscape able to see both at the same time. After the selection process that image of the shadows of the clouds crossing the landscape was reintroduced into my mind. When you look up at the church at St. Edward, you see this beautiful cross on top of the church, reminding you of the sacrifice our Lord and Savior made for all of us. That image needed to be reflected in this gathering space. So we made a shadow of the cross across the pavement to remind us that God is not only in Heaven watching over us (the cross on top of the church), but He is here on this Earth walking among us helping us every day to shape us into who He wants us to be. So that when you are in this space you may look up to the heavens in hope or praise and you can look down on the ground in times of despair and know that He is there with you in those tough times and He will be always. It does not matter that you are inside a beautiful church worshipping Our Lord or outside gathering with a small group, God is with you always. So we praise Jesus for inspiring this place to gather and come to know and serve him better. In Jesus name, Amen.”
