$7.5 million ‘magical garden’ would float between the Delaware River and the Schuylkill
The 5,400-square-foot structure would dock half the year adjacent to Independence Seaport Museum and half near Fairmount Water Works.
A floating classroom its designer calls a “magical garden” that will alternate docks between Philly’s two rivers is slated to open next year.
The 5,400-square-foot, glass-walled classroom, more than twice the size of the typical U.S. home, would spend half the year on the Delaware River adjacent to the Independence Seaport Museum and half the year just below Fairmount Dam on the Schuylkill.
Billed as the “Floating Water Workshop: The Art of Science In Motion,” the structure will initially open in the harbor at Penn’s Landing next to Independence Seaport Museum and situated roughly across from Spruce Street Harbor Park.
Organizers envision that the floating workshop, which would cost about $7.5 million, will be an educational and science field station, a cultural arts destination, an event space, and an environmental education destination.
It would be moved by tugboat to the Schuylkill when a dock and permits there are ready. Permits for the Schuylkill location have proved tricky because the structure cannot be docked there during fish migration season.
Most likely, the workshop would be docked on the Schuylkill from midsummer to winter. It would be docked in the spring — migration season — on the Delaware.
The installation of the project is overseen by the Fairmount Water Works, which is owned by the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD). It would be free to Philadelphia youth with a suggested donation of $2 for the wider public.
“We want to make sure that once the workshop is established, it’s successful and has an opportunity to establish itself,” said Joanne Dahme, a trustee of the Fund for the Water Works, the organization’s nonprofit arm.
‘Magical garden’
Victoria Prizzia, president of Habitheque Inc., an exhibition planning and design studio based in Pipersville, Bucks County, said she designed the floating workshop as if it were “something that a kid would imagine.”
“It’s going to look like a magical garden, a magical water play space,” Prizzia said.
The National Aquarium in Baltimore offered advice last summer on various components, such as an aeration system, Prizzia said. She envisions a variety of hands-on exhibits to demonstrate properties of water.
‘Turtle island’
Plans call for a cantilevered “turtle island” off the rear of the workshop designed to attract turtles as a safe haven. The group consulted scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on that aspect.
“We’re really trying to demonstrate how connected land and water are,” Prizzia said. “They’re inextricably linked. What we do on land impacts our water. So the turtles are wonderful ambassadors for that.”
Prizzia said the floating workshop will be one story with 10-foot high ceilings. It would have a “green roof” with soil and plants over the classroom space to help both cool the structure and attract migrating birds.
“We’re on the bird migration path, and so we’re really creating resting places for them,” Prizzia said. “With all the kinds of things that they would want and plants that they would be attracted to.”
Part of the roof would also contain solar panels to help provide power and shade.
Organizers say they have received private and public donations from various Pennsylvania state programs, PWD, the Trustees of the Fund for the Water Works, Peco, the William Penn Foundation, the Board of Directors of City Trusts, the Delaware Avenue Fund, the estate of Edward Francis Grusheski, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Junior League of Philadelphia, and an anonymous donor.
“A lot of this will tap into the imagination of the people who come visit the Floating Water Workshop,” Prizzia said.
Who’s behind the floating workshop?
The Fund for the Water Works is raising private and public funds for the effort. The group has about 14 partners in the project, including the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, the Water Center at Penn, the Delaware River Waterfront Corp., and the Independence Seaport Museum. So far, it has raised about half the money needed to complete the project.
“We have a lot of educational organizations that want to have an opportunity to use the Floating Water Workshop as a resource,” Dahme said.
A yet-unnamed entity would operate the Floating Water Workshop, Dahme said.
Karen Young, executive director of the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center, said the workshop would give residents “equitable access” to water science education.
The Floating Water Workshop is separate from a $6M FloatLab to be installed on the Schuylkill further downstream at Bartram’s Garden. That project is projected to be complete in 2026.