The Children’s Garden is designed to be an outdoor classroom; a place of unscripted play and spontaneous exploration that provides a “hands on” educational venue where all senses are engaged. The garden offers multiple scales and ways of engaging, from solitary immersion to more social spaces for group activities. The design intent is to emotionally connect children to the living world, foster a sense of wonder and curiosity, and instill a passion for nature. Implicit in our approach to this garden is the belief that the natural world, and its expression in regional landforms, plants, and animals, is magical.

Moving through a series of garden “rooms”, visitors participate in a dynamic journey through Pennsylvania’s unique geologic history. The entrance to the garden is marked by stone walls arranged in vertical planes and a canopy of undulating colored glass panels, illustrating the process over time of Pennsylvania’s mountain tops becoming valleys. The subterranean limestone Grotto features stalactites, a bronze bat colony sculpture, and a secret passageway. The roof is an elevated sinkhole with water cascading down from the meadow-topped Grotto as a small waterfall. The Fossil Floor features Central Pennsylvania’s prehistoric plants and animals with a spiral “time line” to identify key developments in plant evolution. Fossil sculptures accent sunken gardens and circular spaces for group and individual seating.

Childhood’s Gate won the 2014 ASLA Colorado chapter Merit Award. For more details on our approach to designing immersive spaces for children, view our recent post.