Botanic Gardens Children’s Center.
Harvard University

Located on Harvard University’s Cambridge campus, the Botanic Gardens Children’s Center was looking to transform their outdoor play areas for their toddlers and preschoolers into a more natural play space that would offer more opportunities for the children to explore. Our landscape department worked with the staff and director to reinvent their play area as a place to discover nature and explore. Bringing their Reggio-Emilia-inspired teaching approach outdoors.

The Botanic Gardens Children’s Center was built for Harvard in 1999. Given the name of the child care center, the location was once a botanical garden for Harvard University. Prior to renovation the original space included play elements for climbing, riding trikes, and sand play. The space did not encourage in-depth sensory or creative play. The space was divided by a chain link fence which created circulation issues and inhibited the free flow of the space.

Our landscape department’s goal was to allow creative, messy, child-centric play. The play area was transformed into a natural environment for 62 toddlers and preschoolers, integrating play structures seamlessly. One of the necessary design functions was to eliminate the fencing barriers. Thus, providing a central pergola-covered open space for school gatherings and outdoor classroom activities and serving as an ideal spot for clear teacher supervision of the entire play space. The main focus of the new play space is the natural ‘dry stream’ filled with sand and fed by a water pump, shaded by Birch trees. The dry streambed is encircled by a trike tack loop and includes an arched bridge over the ‘stream.’ In addition to this sand and water play feature, we added another water spray feature to the sand play area. The water spray provides a chance to cool off during the summer. This allowed for endless exploration of water, sand, and mud.

We also designed a sensory and natural play environment for their infants and toddlers on their upper deck of the Center in 2021.

*Project completed as studioMLA Architects prior to acquisition by Ashley McGraw Architects