Project overview: The Ramble is a 1.5-acre children’s garden designed to prompt discovery, creativity, and unscripted play. Providing opportunities for people with all levels of mobility is paramount. Rather than segregating lesser “accessible options” as in a traditional playground, the entire garden is full of engaging details where all can play in an inclusive setting.
Nestled in a woodland clearing on a rocky hillside, the garden is organized as a series of destinations within a lush botanic collection. Each feature is crafted from boulders, stumps, logs, branches, and stone unearthed during construction or sourced within a ten-mile radius.
At the center is a circular clover lawn around which the various destinations are arrayed along a gently sloping, fully accessible path. An interactive water sequence with a boulder fountain, waterfall, and wildlife pond invites exploration and animates the clearing. A rustic boulder “outcrop” amphitheater and a “stumpery” of upside-down trees startle and beg to be climbed, while a hand-woven “brush pile” thicket hides a tunnel in which to disappear. More formal programming and garden events happen in a bespoke timber frame pavilion and on its large gathering terrace with an adjoining educational edible garden.
Each element, from the upside-down trees to the hollow “brush pile” to the balanced archway stones, inspires wonder with parallel opportunities to stack, sort, and construct; visitors, young and old, partner with designers, collaborators, and craftspeople to create a garden firmly rooted in its place.
Project location: Boylston, Massachusetts
Firm name: Ryan Associates Landscape Architecture and Planning
Architect of Record: Ryan Associates Landscape Architecture and Planning
Completion: 2022
Jury comments: This project clearly provides a real benefit to the community, and specifically to children, helping them engage in sensorial, memorable interactions with the environment. It implements alternatives to conventional US playscapes (although conventional in other areas of the world), and offers an example to others who would develop new, nature-based playscapes.
Client: New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill
Images/Photographer(s): Ryan Associates; Troy Thompson General Contractor: R.P. Marzilli Civil Engineer: Samiotes Consultants Inc Structural: Fire Tower Engineered Timber Electrical: Thompson Engeering Company, Inc Landscaping: R.P. Marzilli Timber Structures: Timber Homes LLC
