Credit: Art and Design Studios

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a beloved city landmark drawing over one million visitors each year. OLIN has designed a vibrant sculpture garden on the roof of a new underground parking facility, designed by Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, seamlessly integrating the structure into the existing landscape. Seen as an outdoor extension of the museum’s vast art collection, the garden will serve to further connect the institution to the city. The garden is designed to be versatile, creating a variety of spaces for art pieces, while maintaining an open, park-like experience. Native plantings will create additional attraction and provide a sustaining habitat for local wildlife. The relocated surface parking lot adjacent to the garden will employ permeable paving to absorb stormwater, as well as to filter excess into a bio-swale for use on-site.

With the redevelopment of an entire city block - a former parking lot - a significant urban plaza, built entirely over structure, will be introduced into the heart of Portland this fall. OLIN’s design creates new open spaces with a range of microclimates, amenities, and places for activity that will become a unique destination and landmark for residents and visitors. A key feature of Director Park will be an open, glass and wood canopy, accessible from the adjacent sidewalk and sitting high along the street’s edge, offering views over the plaza. The canopy will incorporate innovative stormwater techniques to capture and reuse runoff on-site to support the irrigation of plants during the dry months.

Growing Minds: members of OLIN with Philadelphia middle school sudents

Members of OLIN volunteered to help Philadelphia middle school students design a garden at Richard Allen Preparatory School. The students are part of the Growing Minds program which aspires to motivate young people to create positive change in the community through gardening and landscape design. The OLIN team engaged students in brainstorm sessions to help them visualize the design of their garden, working with physical site models and building consensus through group discussion and presentation. The OLIN crew then helped students install a garden path, build Adirondack-style benches from discarded wood crate palettes and plant various shrubs and herbaceous plants ranging from scented silver thyme, lantana, hydrangeas and ornamental grasses.