new Jersey State Museum
Our planting design class was tasked to create inviting and exciting outdoor spaces for the New Jersey State Museum. The director of the museum reached out to us to not only provide planting plans, but to use our creativity to completely change the way people interact with this area. I teamed up with my classmate Zoe Orlino to execute the idea of capitalizing on the museum's exhibits to create interactive outdoor exhibits. The proposed designs all take inspiration from the existing elements on site and become a memorable way kids and adults experience the New Jersey State Museum.
Context
This video was a first attempt at animating a context map with Google Earth. The video shows a zoom of the Museum and its relation to the Delaware River and route 29 which are South of the site. The museum is located on West State Street in Trenton, NJ. It sits adjacent to the State Library which is East of the Museum and sits directly behind the Museum's Auditorium.
Site Plan
rendered by zoe Orlino
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This plan shows the redesign of the entire site. There are 6 separate spaces that have their own theme. The spaces are the dino dig area, the grass display, the legislative building, the NJ geology garden, the solar system plaza, and the #NJSMuseum/Bus stop.
Dino DIg
rendered by zoe Orlino
The first area is the dinosaur dig area. This was inspired by the existing prehistoric rock showing the foot print of a dinosaur. It was originally located in front of the auditorium, but we proposed to move it closer to the museum and create a dinosaur themed path. This path has pockets of sand where kids can experience what it is like to be an archeologist to discover faux bones of dinosaurs that are native to New Jersey.
Grass Display
rendered by zoe orlino
The second design area is located in between the front of the museum and the back of the auditorium. The museum already placed art sculptures and historical artifacts on this strip of lawn. We wanted to compliment the existing elements by proposing ornamental grasses such as pink muhly grass, mexican feather grass, and hakone grass to allow the textures and colors to frame the sculptures.
​Legislative building
The third design area isn't apart of the museum, but was asked to be looked at since the Governor and the law makers are currently using this building while the state capitol is closed. We felt it still deserved a theme and that theme became state pride. To do that, state plants are proposed such as the state tree, which is the flowering dogwood, the state fruit, which is the highbush blueberry, and the state flower, which is the common blue violet.
nj geology garden
The fourth design area is around the planetarium. Behind the stairs, there are currently sleeper stones from New Jersey's old railways. The museum is currently moving the stones elsewhere so we wanted to extend the idea of a rock garden given there is very little sun exposure under the stairs. This idea of the rock garden extended around the entire planetarium features boulders of bedrock found all throughout New Jersey. At night, experiential lights can be seen cast on the boulders to create an eye capturing view from route 29.
Solar system plaza
The fifth design area is directly inspired by the planetarium. The solar system plaza is a 3D mural featuring interactive structures where kids can learn about the size and position of the planets in our solar system in relation to each other.
#NJSMuseum & Bus stop rendered by zoe orlino
The last design area is the entrance to the site. One of the concerns was the museum wasn't noticeable from the street. We had the idea to recreate their sign for the museum with a large 3D sculpture spelling out #NJSMuseum making this a perfect photo opportunity and creating social media awareness with the hashtag. There was an existing bus stop on site that we felt deserved a cohesive design with the 3D sculpture by the bench having a similar paint design and creating a custom shade structure in the shape of New Jersey. Beyond that is an existing lawn space with very little seating. We decided to reinvent seating to create mini pocket plazas which literally draw people into the lawn but still leaves open space in the center of the lawn for activities.