Friday Photos: Boston Children's Museum

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates received an ASLA 2008 Design Honor Award for their work at the Boston Children's Museum calling it "a great example of placemaking." It is clear that our group had more complex feelings about it. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the walk. Maybe it was the design. We'll try again in 3 years.






The big heavy milk bottle wasn't as easy to drop in as might first appear. Here's a comment from the ASLA awards announcement:

"Throughout the project, construction techniques were employed to address the need for durability on a constantly shifting site. Expanded polystyrene foam (Geofoam) was used as fill below the finished plaza to offset the weight of the new landscape and to prevent further settlement. Steel piles driven into the native bedrock were installed to support heavier elements like the marble boulders and the Milk Bottle. A waterproof liner system was developed to contain the roots of the willow trees while keeping the saline ground water from contaminating the planting soils."