Louisiana Children’s Museum: A Joyous Landscape in City Park

Honor Award

General Design

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Mithun
Client: Louisiana Children's Museum

Where Land and Water Mix

Louisiana Children’s Museum is situated in an abundant natural and cultural setting in City Park, at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans.

Image Credit: Photo by Kevin Barraco, Smart Media LLC
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Inviting Arrival

Grassy mounds and bioswales in the parking plaza invite visitors to the big porch.

Image Credit: Photo by Kevin Scott
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Demonstrating Resilience

The floodable site supports the City’s urban water plan, is LEED Gold certified and was a SITES pilot project.

Image Credit: Image by Mithun
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An Experiential Landscape

View of floating bio islands from the floating classroom barge that moves by “kid power”.

Image Credit: Photo by Webb Bland
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Oaks, Hummocks and Hollows

The patterns of the bayou landscape form the design concept.

Image Credit: Diagrams by Mithun. Lower left photo of oak tree: Photo by Kevin Scott. Right two photos by Mithun.
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A Series of Play Hummocks

The hummocks include a series of yaupon groves with sensory activities – playing drums, spotting colors or birds, and an invitation to hop and move.

Image Credit: Diagrams by Mithun. Photos from left to right: photos 1-3 by Kevin Scott, photo 4 by Mithun (Christian Runge).
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Learning Through Play, Indoors and Out

The pedagogy of play was coordinated to repeat learning exhibit experiences.

Image Credit: Photos by Kevin Scott
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The Connection Between Food and Water

A runnel flows through the Edible Hummock, past the kitchen and vegetable beds to a sluice gate at the Hummock Hop—enticing active play and learning.

Image Credit: Photo by Mithun (Christian Runge)
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Imagination Play at the Hummock Hop

The hummock hop attracts imaginative play.

Image Credit: Photo by Kevin Scott
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Plant Inspiration from Bayou Sauvage to the Port of New Orleans

Small changes in elevation result in major differences in ecosystems in Louisiana. Plant massing makes these changes more visible.

Image Credit: Diagram and Photos by Mithun
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Integration of Building and Site

Integration characterizes the work—siting the building among live oaks, framing views, and reflecting the color of the horsetail in the columns.

Image Credit: Photo by Mithun (Christian Runge)
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One Dynamic Place

The museum landscape and building blend into the ecology, hydrology and culture of New Orleans—engaging a dynamic flow of people, water and species.

Image Credit: Photo by Kevin Scott
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Memorial Honoring a Legacy of Support for New Orleans' Children

This site installation is a socially engaging place for grandparents, parents and children to sit, play and reflect.

Image Credit: Diagrams by Mithun. Photos by Kevin Scott.
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Comfort with Water

Fujiko Nakaya’s Fog installation integrated with the bridge arrival engages visitors in water play, a therapeutic way to address storm-related trauma.

Image Credit: Image by Mithun
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Post Occupancy Survey

The post-occupancy survey found alignment between people’s experiences and the design’s original principles and values.

Image Credit: Charts by Mithun. Icon by Gan Khoon Lay / The Noun Project
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Site Plan

Five acres of the museum grounds are free and open to the public.

Image Credit: Image by Mithun
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“

The Louisiana Children’s Museum design embodies the local ecosystems and dramatic changes throughout the site in fun ways and sets a modern precedent for children’s museums and inclusive educational play spaces.

”

- 2024 Awards Jury

Project Credits

Pastorek Habitats, Local Landscape Architect

Schrenk Endom Flanagan, Civil Engineer

Biohabitats, Ecology and Permitting Advisor

Gyroscope Inc., Exhibit Design

Landscape Images, Adventure Play Area Design

ARUP, Site Lighting, MEP Engineer, AV & Acoustics

Mithun, Architecture, Interior Design

Waggonner & Ball Architects, Local Collaborating Architect

Roy Anderson Corp., General Contractor

RCI, Landscape Subcontractor

Thornton Thomasetti, Structural Engineer

Vanir Construction Management, Inc., Construction Manager

William Brown (WBLA), Irrigation Design

Fujiko Nakaya / MEE Fog, Site Art Installation

Mitchell Gaudet, Glass Artist (Mardi Gras beads, glass lens at Burrowing Hummock)

Studio Matthews, Environmental Graphics

Bayou Tree Service, Live Oak Specialist

Pastorek Habitats, Planting Design Consultant

Project Statement

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 a wealth of ways to explore the artistic, sensory and natural worlds. The City Park site is part of 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 of the challenging issues facing New Orleans and the world, including coastal shoreline loss, water management, food insecurity and climate adaptation.

Project Narrative

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 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 and well-being 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.

The building and site were designed to accommodate periodic flooding, and mitigate the hot, humid climate. The integrated design optimizes the shade of mature live oak trees, the world’s largest grove of live oaks, and the flow of a freshwater 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 water, through immersive exhibits and into a courtyard and sensory gardens.

The magic of child-centered play is reinforced with a simple expression of the local landscape—the oaks, the hummocks and the hollows. In the delta landscape, a six-inch topographic change enables a wholly different ecosystem. These slight variations in topography and dramatic ecosystem change are the backbone of the design concept. The hummocks and hollows concept unfolds in multiple ways across multiple scales—as small, medium, and large program and outdoor exhibit areas create varied play experiences and build healthy habitat. The International Living Future Institute recognized the project with the 2021 Stephen R. Kellert Biophilic Design Award.

The Reggio Emilia child development philosophy—a child-centered approach that emphasizes multisensory nature play—guided the design of experiential and haptic elements that cast changing shadows and inspire interactive rainwater engagement while providing energy reductions and stormwater utility. During the pandemic, the museum pivoted to host preschool and kindergarten students (94% of whom are living under the poverty line) from a nearby charter school for daily classes, providing a critical service to support the surrounding community. Test scores during this time dramatically increased.

The new museum has changed the city and the state. Average monthly attendance from across the state has tripled. The Governor and the Mayor of New Orleans increased financial support for early childhood development citing the Museum’s example. And a recent regional economic group survey identified early childhood development as the top priority within the region. As part of a suite of projects, LCM’s resilient green infrastructure helped the City win a $141 million grant through the 2015 National Disaster Resilience Competition. The project’s exemplary actual sustainable performance and post-occupancy lessons earned recognition with a 2022 AIA COTE Top Ten Plus Award. The jury remarked, “This project exemplifies a resilient way of living with water in a place that is continuously challenged by its proximity to it.”

Products

Furniture
- Wausau Tile, Inc: precast concrete seats
- Wausau/Tectura: custom precast memorial bench
- Landscape Forms: benches
- Fabricari: bollards
- DeroHelix: bike racks
Fences/Gates/Walls
- US Fence: perimeter fence, gates, vine facade
Irrigation
- Rain Bird
- Aqua Shield
- Pentair
- Hayward
Lumber/Decking/Edging
- Permatrak: concrete deck for boardwalk and bridges
- Permaloc: metal edge
- Woodward Millwork: wood deck
Structures
- Fabricari: Boardwalk and dock railings, bird blind, ramada, ramada table steel, outdoor kindow, vine cables
- Lafarge: floating classroom (moved here because too many at Other – only 5 fields online)
Water Management/Amenities
- FogCo: cloud grass misters
- Specified Water Systems, LLC East Jordan Iron Works: Sewer covers
- SCI Precast: Drain Inlets
- Urban Accessories/Jamison SCI Precast: Drain Inlets
Soils
- Wood Resources: soils
- Tensar Geogrid: vine mounds
- Invisible Structures, Inc.: fire lane
Hardscape
- St. Joe Brick Works, Inc
- Dan Jennison: Precast hummock hop pavers
Lighting
- Ligman
Other
- Heath Manufacturing: Purple Martin Bird Houses
- Richter Spielgeräte: Sluice gate and mushroom pump
- Percussion Play/Babel Drum: Jammin Hummock
- Gametime/Shadow Play Flower: Cloud Grasses
- Bison: Hand pump at edible garden

Plant List

Yaupon Holly
Southern Live Oak
Pond Cypress
Possumhaw
Mayhaw Hawthorn
Gardenia
Bear’s Breeches
Butterfly Ginger
Sweet Spire ‘Henry’s Garnet’
Dwarf Palmetto
Meyer Lemon
Southern Waxy Sedge
Marsh Hay
Bull Tongue
Pickerelweed
Copper Iris
Stokes Aster
Pink Muhly Grass
Switchgrass
Red Jewel Millet