congrats

Congratulations to the Boston Children's Museum and their landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. on winning a 2008 General Design Award of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects.  A featured juror comment reads calls the design "playful and daring without being silly and avoids the clichés of working with children’s landscapes. A fantastic example of placemaking."  More from the award:

In a world where almost everything within a city is designed for adults, the Boston Children’s Museum Plaza is designed for children. Perceptions of difference, distance, size, and scale are playfully manipulated in different ways within the new plaza. Inspired by the forty-foot-tall Hood Milk Bottle, all elements of the design, from the seating and paving to the unique environments like the marble boulders or the native plant garden, are slightly oversized, undersized, overstated and boldly patterned.

With respect to its urban setting, the plaza establishes a clear outdoor area for the museum that is distinct from but fundamentally connected to the pre-existing Harborwalk and attracts attention within the seemingly boundless waterfront setting. In recognition of its significance, the Hood Milk Bottle was rebuilt in a new location in order to announce the presence of the museum from a distance and enhance its visibility from all directions. In conjunction with architectural improvements, the design of the plaza also serves to clarify the museum’s entry sequence.

The award text is dated in one respect: it says that the museum is on track for LEED certification.  It's my understanding that BCM already earned that certification, becoming the first museum in Boston to have it, so good on them.