A R C H I T E C T S
Bronx Children's Museum
opened december 3rd 2022
Located on the banks of the Harlem River, the Bronx Children's Museum aims to engage children with the connectivity of urban culture and the natural world. The design catalyzes the site's position between city grid and tidal river with a Museum Architecture of organic flow inside the rectangular frame of the existing historic powerhouse - a new kind of space unlike the city's cellular rooms and street grids, connecting to the geometry and experience of the natural landscape and waterfront.
Concept
The architecture of organic flow resonates with Jean Piaget's discoveries in The Child's Conception of Space: "prior to organizing a projective and Euclidean space, the child starts by building up and using certain primitive relationships such as proximity and separation, order and enclosure."
Cross laminated timber (CLT) walls, guardrails, and elevated floors are fabricated with advanced digital technology allowing for varying radii arcs to form organic spatial curves. The curved CLT and translucent acrylic partitions diverge, reconnect and spiral to create continuity and separation between exhibition spaces.
