Richard Franko
With the world’s largest grove of live oaks stretching overhead, the Louisiana Children’s Museum was uniquely designed for New Orleans’ City Park. This didn’t happen by accident, but rather as an explicit commitment to the Museum’s CEO, Julia Bland. “This would be a building and place that could only be on this site,” recalled Richard Franko, principal in charge of the project at Mithun. Unlike the grocery store exhibits common to almost every other children’s museum, in Louisiana they were “trying to create something essential to New Orleans,” according to Franko.
The Louisiana Children’s Museum shows that when we design buildings with natural systems in mind, we create solutions that are efficient, resilient and refined. Their new building will shape generations of children, tomorrow’s leaders who will have to find solutions to the challenges we face today.