When people hear adaptive reuse, they often think of warehouses converted into apartments or factories transformed into restaurants. But landscapes can be adapted too.
In fact, some of the most meaningful landscapes are those that carry the past forward into new uses.
Historic image of the Ogden Union Stockyards.
At Io LandArch, we believe that every landscape contains stories worth telling. Our role as designers is not to erase those stories in pursuit of something new, but to understand them, reveal them, and continue them. Adaptive reuse allows us to write the next chapter while honoring the chapters that came before.
This idea was the focus of a recent presentation called Adaptive Reuse as Storytelling: Reviving the Spirit of Place, by Principal Landscape Architect Shalae Larsen at the Utah Historic Preservation Conference.
Shalae spoke at the 2026 Preservation Engaged Conference, hosted by Preservation Utah and the Utah State Historic Preservation Office.
Landscapes Are Living Stories
Historic places are more than collections of buildings and artifacts. Landscapes tell stories through ecology, memory, human activity, and the passage of time. Unlike buildings, which are often defined by their enduring materials, landscapes are living systems that change and evolve over time.
A historic landscape exists in multiple dimensions simultaneously:
- Space
- Time
- Ecology
- Human experience
Understanding these layers is the first step toward meaningful preservation and design.
Shalae Larsen and Emma Bevevino on-site for the Spanish Fork Reconnaissance Level Survey.
Why Adaptive Reuse Matters
Increasingly, designers encounter places with existing narratives already embedded within them: industrial sites awaiting reinvention, aging parks in need of renewal, and ecological landscapes requiring restoration. Today’s work often begins not with a blank slate, but with inherited stories.
The most successful adaptive reuse projects share a common philosophy:
- Reveal rather than erase.
- Layer rather than replace.
- Adapt rather than abandon.
Adaptive reuse through interpretation (Slide from Adaptive Reuse as Storytelling: Reviving the Spirit of Place, by Principal Landscape Architect Shalae Larsen at the Utah Historic Preservation Conference).
Case Study: The Ogden Union Stockyards
The historic Ogden Union Stockyards once served as one of the largest livestock markets west of Denver, operating as a center of transportation, commerce, and agricultural exchange from 1916 through 1971.
When Io LandArch began work on what is now OBE Commons and the Trackline Bike Park, the question was not simply what can we build here?
The question was:
What story are we preserving?
Historic sheep loading ramps on site; as photographed during the Ogden Union Stockyard HALS and Master Plan.
Through the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) process, the team documented the site’s defining characteristics, including sheep loading ramps, watering troughs, circulation systems, historic paving, and spatial organization. Documentation became more than an archival exercise. It became a design tool.
Not everything could or should be saved. Instead, the design focused on preserving the elements that continued to communicate the site’s identity: the loading ramp promenade, circulation patterns, and the industrial rhythm of the landscape.
The sheep ramps no longer load livestock, but they still tell the story of loading livestock.
Today they frame public open space, a regional trail connection, and a bike park. The movement of sheep has become the movement of people. Commerce has become community gathering. The underlying story of exchange continues.
Historic forms were carried forward into paving patterns, furnishings, graphics, and interpretive elements, creating a contemporary design vocabulary rooted in the site’s history.
The goal was never to create a museum.
The goal was to keep the landscape legible.
New uses, same story (Slide from Adaptive Reuse as Storytelling: Reviving the Spirit of Place, by Principal Landscape Architect Shalae Larsen at the Utah Historic Preservation Conference).
Case Study: Allen Park
If the Stockyards tell a story of infrastructure and commerce, Allen Park tells one of creativity, ecology, and wonder.
The site’s history includes Emigration Creek, the Allen family homestead, artists and naturalists, the whimsical cabins of “Hobbitville,” and decades of informal community stewardship. Nature and culture evolved together here.
Interestingly, adaptive reuse was already part of Allen Park’s DNA.
Historic paving incorporated salvaged materials. Cabins were relocated from mining communities. Concrete, stone, and tile fragments found new life throughout the landscape. Reuse itself became a character-defining feature of the site.
Preserving Allen Park meant asking a difficult question:
How do you preserve magic?
The answer was not to freeze the landscape in time.
Instead, the design approach focused on preserving relationships: cabin locations, gathering spaces, pathways, and the site’s unique balance between human creativity and ecological immersion.
Material reuse, ecological restoration, and thoughtful planting design all became tools for carrying the story forward. The goal was not to privilege a single moment in history, but to continue a landscape that has always reinvented itself.
Manage time rather than freezing time (Slide from Adaptive Reuse as Storytelling: Reviving the Spirit of Place, by Principal Landscape Architect Shalae Larsen at the Utah Historic Preservation Conference).
Preservation Through Continuity
At first glance, the Ogden Stockyards and Allen Park could not be more different. One is an industrial landscape defined by commerce and movement of goods. The other is a cultural landscape defined by creativity and movement of people.
Yet both projects reveal the same truth:
Historic landscapes survive not because they resist change, but because they adapt while retaining their identity.
Preservation is not about stopping change. It is about guiding change. Adaptive reuse allows historic landscapes to remain relevant, legible, and meaningful for future generations.
The question is not whether historic landscapes will change. They will.
The question is whether the next chapter will deepen the story, or erase it.
Comparing the two projects (Slide from Adaptive Reuse as Storytelling: Reviving the Spirit of Place, by Principal Landscape Architect Shalae Larsen at the Utah Historic Preservation Conference).
