Well-designed and deliberately-planted tree gardens greet visitors with intense structural resonance. But to the student studying for an exam or sending an email home, shade and comfort prevail. Here, we planted a complex palette of trees—oaks, lindens, and maples—to create an urbane forest that erupts in shades of red and yellow in the fall. Our landscapes are structured in a way that heightens the effects of natural phenomena: light and shadow, annual and seasonal change, water.