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Educational Playgrounds
Noah's Ark
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Noah’s Ark
DESIGNERS Alan Maskin, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects;
Christopher M. Green; Ned Kahn; Moshe Safdie
TEACHING GOAL Teamwork
An 8,000-square-foot space inside the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Noah’s Ark includes over 300 animals made from repurposed objects, including a hedgehog with dried-macaroni bristles and an alligator made from a violin case, to teach biodiversity and cooperation. Kids have to work together to operate simple machines like rainmakers or move the larger, kinetic animals—and yes, there’s a wooden ark built for scrambling around in, with a conveyor belt that lets kids load up foam animals, two by two.
In creating the environment, the designers hoped to create a sense of discovery for visitors, while also triggering ideas about how objects can be transformed in combination with other parts and pieces. “It’s the root of inventive thinking if you think about it,” says architect Alan Maskin. “In chemistry, cooking, design—it’s about how you choose to put things.” Outside, light and water converge in an appropiate narrative conclusion to the flood: a curved, perforated metal structure that mists water in the sunshine to make rainbows.
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