“The Nature Nook”. Boston Nature Center

Designed by studioMLA Architects to connect children of all ages with the outdoors, the “Nature Nook” is nearly one acre of natural play area at the Boston Nature Center. Located just beyond downtown Boston, the Center is an urban sanctuary and part of the Mass Audubon Society. The Nature Nook is a destination for outdoor play and learning for their nature pre-school, school-age programs, and summer camp, and for hundreds of visitors.

The Boston Nature Center incorporated the Nature Explore framework for providing exploratory activities in a nature play setting. With that vision, studioMLA worked with the staff, contractor, and site to ensure a safe, inclusive space that introduced children to natural elements and open-ended play activities. Natural discovery experiences include gardening opportunities, a dirt digging area, a sand play area, an ornamental grass maze, a streambed, a boardwalk through a native sumac grove, a fallen tree climbing log, a stage, and a building area with natural materials. The Nature Nook is one of 30 national projects developed through and endorsed by the National Forum on Children and Nature.

Services Provided

Landscape architecture.

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

History Before the Boston Nature Center

Previously the property was the site of the Boston State Hospital, shown in the photo above; it was founded in 1839. The hospital site was originally chosen for its rural and tranquil setting, as the area was mainly farmland outside of the city border. The thinking during that period was that “what a troubled person really needed to get better was fresh air, hard work, and a separation from the stresses and evil influences (both social and environmental) of city life.” Ironically, the land is still used as a getaway from city life. Over the following century, marshland would be filled in, trees planted, the brook rechanneled, and other elements of the landscape transformed, which gave the contours of the Boston Nature Center today. When you stand there today, from the photo, the entrance road replaces the walkway on the left half of the photo, and their three brick buildings are in front of you, all surrounded by lines of oaks and other plantings.

Today

studioMLA Architects’ Landscape Department worked carefully with staff, contractors, and the specific conditions of the site to design a safe, inclusive space that introduces children to natural elements and open-ended play at every turn. The design provides open space for children to play freely, while maintaining seating along the edge for caregivers to watch on unobtrusively. The space is surrounded by an accessible path which loops around to provide easy access and circulation for all users.

The ‘Nature Nook’, a natural play space located at the Boston Nature Center, was designed by studioMLA Architects to afford children and their families a nature-based play experience within an urban environment. The goal was to provide city based families that would traditionally have little opportunity of spending time in nature, an invitation to experience the natural world. The Boston Nature Center staff found that some children (and their parents) were actually afraid of the woods, dirt, bugs, etc. This project was designed to move these visitors from biophobic to biophilic.

The Boston Nature Center is a 67-acre urban sanctuary of the Massachusetts Audubon Society located in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood in Boston. The area consists of over two miles of nature trails through wetland meadows and woodland forests.

The idea that spending time in nature can promote well-being and provide restorative benefits to one’s mental and emotional states is not new but has returned to the forefront of current thinking on therapeutic design. It’s not coincidental that this approach is now intersecting with growing research showing that spending time in nature supports and nurtures young children’s development. We can see this evidenced by the increased emergence of nature-based play spaces.

The abundance of plantings also provide a supply of natural loose parts for children to play with, from sticks, to leaves or the wood chips surfacing. The staff augments the materials with branches and other loose material from the sanctuary.

The play space is regularly used by the children attending the on-site nature preschool program who frequent the space daily, as well as school field trip students and summer campers. Additionally, the ‘Nature Nook’ is open to the public and has been discovered by neighborhood adults and families of the Boston area. Some of the shared experiences by the community have been an increase in the enjoyment and ease with which they can now experience nature within the city.

Today, the Center and the ‘Nature Nook’ continue to provide respite and rejuvenation for Bostonians of all ages and invite the community to reconnect with the natural environment.

Conclusion & Lessons Learned

Thoughtful selection of plant materials will add play value to the environment, and looped path systems create a fun and functional circulation system through the play space.

Children LOVE sand play! Ensure that your sand play area is large enough. For reference, the ‘Nature Nook’ provides 20 ft x 20 ft of sand play.
Select trees that can hold up to children’s vigorous use. An unanticipated discovery at the ‘Nature Nook’, was that children love climbing the multi-stemmed willow trees surrounding the site.
Select plants that are invasive in ways that are practical for the environment. For example, planting herbs like rosemary and mint which will easily continue to grow on their own.
Select trees that are naturally fast-growing. Trees that are smaller when planted have a better chance of adapting and thriving in their new environments. For the ‘Nature Nook,’ we selected fast-growing varieties of trees, such as River Birches and Eastern White Pines, as they grow quickly and fill out the space over years, not decades.