Louisiana Children's Museum

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

Project Overview

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Louisiana Children’s Museum 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 in the 1,300-acre City Park. 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.

ENRICHING CHILDREN’S PERSPECTIVE

The choreography of the visitor experience is designed to connect people and nature throughout their journey—moving through groves of live oaks, across water, onto the porch, through the building and into a courtyard and sensory gardens. A cloud sculpture envelopes the entry boardwalk in a periodic mist, creating a magical space and immersive water experience for visitors entering across the lagoon. The building parti has two primary volumes. The north arrival building contains a freely accessible museum store, café, lagoon porch and literacy center as well as reception and museum offices. It is linked by the ‘Julia Street’ connector to the south activity building which houses exhibit and activity galleries. The two skewed volumes create a courtyard linked to outdoor experiences to the north. The volumes are carefully laced between existing live oaks and feature a shaded arrival ‘porch’ with prospect to the adjoining lagoon. The design is guided by Reggio Emilia child development philosophy—an approach that emphasizes multi-sensory and child-directed exploration. In addition to hands-on exhibits, the building itself incorporates diverse child-scaled spaces like 12 “kindows” (bay windows that invite children to climb in and peer out across the site), and child-sized entry door and smaller dining banquettes in the café.

CELEBRATING PLACE

The museum design cultivates an experience that is uniquely New Orleans, from the central courtyard and expansive porch to interactive glass spheres inspired by traditional Mardi Gras beads. The site design is inspired by the hummocks and hollows—small mounds and depressions where slight changes in elevation create unique ecosystems—characteristic of the South Louisiana landscape. Interactive experiences like the music hummock, edible garden and Pelican’s Perch are mixed with native shoreline restoration along the lagoon edge.

BIOCLIMATIC DESIGN AND RESILIENCE

The building is set five feet above grade to accommodate severe storm events, and the site is intentionally designed for up to three feet of periodic inundation. On target for LEED Gold certification, the project also prioritizes low emitting materials and energy reduction. Large overhangs, louvers and fritted glass to the south and west reduce solar gain and bird strikes, and provide shaded queuing space for visitors. Cooling systems utilize chilled slabs and humidity-reducing dessicant systems paired with a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) and a high coefficient of performance (COP) chiller to reduce power use by 54 percent.

Project History

In 1986 the Louisiana Children’s Museum opened its doors in a renovated historic warehouse in the New Orleans Warehouse District. Over 30 years it established a national reputation as an advocate for children, with programs like Play Power that helped children develop emotional literacy and resilience through play. In 2005, following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the museum took a bold step and developed a new vision of ‘taking children outside” on an 8.5-acre site within historic 1,300-acre City Park. The site is bisected by one of the park lagoons, created as ornamental ponds by the WPA in the 1930s. The site would enable children to have indoor and outdoor experiences, and to spend time in landscapes from restored native wetlands to free-form play beneath giant live oak trees. The environment and exhibits are based upon a framework grounded in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. In 2008 an integrated design team started work with the museum and the framework planner to develop outreach, programming and detailed site analysis of the City Park environment. Working with biologists and naturalists, the team developed strategies for enhancing biodiversity and stormwater function on site. Community outreach for the museum concept started with diverse stakeholders from different neighborhoods and demographic groups within the city. The LCM team wanted a holistic impact on children’s health and education. The State of Louisiana currently ranks 48th nationally for ‘overall child well-being” (aecf.org). That context catalyzed a goal to create a synergistic co-location of multiple resources and experiences beyond the normal play and learning experiences of a typical children’s museum. The vision for the museum campus includes diverse collection of indoor and outdoor exhibits with on-site supporting partners. Outdoor classrooms including the Edible Garden, Toddler Landscape, Wetlands exploration, Music Hummock, Cistern and Runnel water play, Pelican’s Perch, Floating Classroom and Labyrinth. Complementary indoor exhibits highlight New Orleans and the Mississippi River, local music and art, Move with the River, Dig into Nature, Follow that Food, and the Talk and Play Literacy Center. The museum’s partners include the Tulane Institute of Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health, literacy and education partners, the Brain Institute and The Policy Institute for Children. These partners are key to advancing research and education for children and families, through the groundbreaking “1,000 Days“ program developed to support social/emotional health for all children. Impact: The new museum opened in August 2019 with a dramatic increase in visitors and a quadrupling of membership. The momentum helped inspire statewide initiatives and financial commitments from city and state government to early childhood development programs. The New Orleans Superintendent of Schools is interested in mirroring programs around outdoor education for STEM and engaged learning. As COVID-19 shuttered museum operations in early 2020, LCM quickly pivoted and opened their doors to a charter public school, the Langston Hughes Academy, and 120 students from an under-resourced community. In the one year on site, the LHA student excelled, scoring over 40% higher than their peer group in Louisiana.

PROJECT CREDITS
Project: Louisiana Children's Museum, New Orleans
Owner: Louisiana Children's Museum
Architect, Landscape Architect, Interior Designer: Mithun
Associate Architect: Waggonner & Ball
Engineer - Structural: Thornton Tomasetti
Engineer - Civil: Schrenk Endom Flanagan
Engineer - MEP: ARUP
Exhibit/Interpretive Design: Gyroscope, Inc.
Environmental Graphics Design: Studio Matthews
Strategic Educational Planning: Vergeront Museum Planning
Building Envelope Consultant: JRS Engineering
Lighting Design, Security, Telecom, Acoustics and AV: ARUP Food Service Consultant: JLR Design Group
Daylighting Consultant: Integrated Design Lab
Hardware: Gordon Adams
Specifications: Applied Building Information
Planting Design Consultant: Pastorek Habitats
Arborist: Bayou Tree Service
General Contractor: Roy Anderson Corp.