The depaving movement has become something of a national sport in the Netherlands, with municipalities competing to see who can remove the most paving from their town each year. Stateside the crusade to replace concrete and asphalt with permeable landscapes (ideally: gardens) may be slower to take hold, but it’s been around for nearly two decades, starting with Depave Portland in Oregon and spreading to communities across the country.

In Somerville, Massachusetts, Depave Somerville organizes “depaving parties” for homeowners. Landscape architect Sara Brunelle, one of the founders Lu La Studiowas selected for one of these volunteer-run events. So, one April day, an asphalt recycling dumpster and a crew of about 10 volunteers showed up to tear up the parking lot behind Brunelle’s house with crowbar and sledge hammers.

Brunelle and her business partner, landscape designer Katie Smith, had dreamed up a new permeable landscape for the yard, but they didn’t anticipate how gratifying the actual depaving would be. “It was truly joyful—like the best of a CrossFit gym and an awesome wild community,” says Brunelle. “It really was electric. Katie and I both have a background in urban gardening. This was an awesome moment of direct action.” It was also a little emotional: It began to rain right after the depaving was complete, and they realized the soil had not felt rain for at least 70 years. “That smell of rain on earth was so poignant,” Smith says. “That’s our responsibility as landscape architects to rehabilitate.”

Brunelle and Smith’s goal was to create a multi-functional, re-wilded garden for all the residents of the multi-family building. They managed to fit in an eating area, a play lawn, a permeable parking space, and a vegetable garden on the 30 feet by 40 feet lot.

Photography by Haley Givingcourtesy of Lu La Studio.

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