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Louisiana Children's Museum by Christian Runge
Louisiana Children's Museum envisioned a new model for children's museums: a place where children and families in one of the nation's most underserved regions would have many ways to explore the artistic, sensory, and natural worlds. The museum is a part of City Park, which features a collection of civic institutions sitting on the edge of a lagoon teeming with wildlife, and provides an ideal living classroom. The site design integrates mature live oaks, the new museum building, and experiential outdoor spaces that demonstrate solutions to some challenging issues facing New Orleans and the world, including coastal shoreline loss, water management, food insecurity, and climate adaptation.After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Louisiana Children's Museum (LCM) re-envisioned its mission to holistically address the health and development of children in a state that often ranks 48th in educational outcomes. The health benefits of intentionally connecting children with nature led the museum to relocate from an indoor-focused experience in New Orleans' Warehouse District to a new campus encircling a lagoon alongside other museums and attractions in City Park, where families have been going for generations. The new campus presents a transformative model for children's museums, one that weaves together indoor and outdoor learning opportunities along with literacy, parenting, early childhood research, and environmental education activities to create a holistic and supportive environment for children and their families.Live Oaks, Hummocks, and HollowsThe building and site were designed to accommodate periodic flooding and mitigate the hot, humid climate. The layout prioritizes the shade of mature live oak trees on site, part of the world's largest grove of live oaks. The site harnesses the flow of a brackish lagoon as a local stormwater receiving area that relieves flooding in downtown neighborhoods. The choreography of the visitor experience connects families with these nature-based systems - moving through groves of live oaks, across the water, and through immersive exhibits and sensory gardens.
January 2025 Playgrounds Column
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