26. August 2024
Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium
Designed by Ayers Saint Gross, and following from a concept developed by Studio Gang in their strategic master plan for the National Aquarium a decade ago, the Harbor Wetland aims to educate the public and expand the natural habitat in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Many cities in the 21st century find themselves striving to recreate the natural landscapes that predate urbanization — to combat climate change, increase biodiversity, and provide places of education and recreation, among other reasons. While New York City, for example, is trying to bring back the oyster population that was wiped out after the Dutch arrived, down the Eastern Seaboard, in Baltimore, the National Aquarium is turning part of its campus into a Chesapeake Bay demonstration landscape. The 10,000 square foot (930 m2) Harbor Wetland, which opened on August 8, “will allow visitors to immerse themselves in a salt marsh habitat,” per Baltimore's Ayers Saint Gross, “like those that existed in this space hundreds of years ago.”
Pier 3 sits to the right of Pier 4. (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
The National Aquarium was established in Massachusetts in 1873 and soon made its longtime home in Washington, DC. About a hundred years later the institution was threatened with closing, but it was given a new home on Pier 3 in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, as part of the city's redevelopment of the area in the 1970s. The National Aquarium opened on Pier 3 in 1981 and expanded to Pier 4 in 1990. Suitably, the new Harbor Wetland sits between these two piers, visible from the enclosed walkway that connects the but also accessible from the walkway at Pier 4. In fact, access to the Harbor Wetland is free, open to the public without an aquarium ticket during aquarium hours.
View of Harbor Wetland from Pier 3 (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
The Harbor Wetland features more than 32,000 native shrubs and marsh grasses adjacent to docks that allow visitors to get closer to the recreated wetland habitat. The shrubs and grasses sit on recycled plastic matting that allows their roots to grow down into the water, “providing microhabitats for dozens of native species and drawing nutrients and contaminants from the water,” per Ayers Saint Gross. Coated with a UV protectant, the matting is fixed to “a system of air-regulated pontoons that allow for adjustable buoyancy of the wetland to offset weight gain from growing biomass.” In order to replicate the movement of water during tidal changes in a natural tidal marsh, compressed air is moved through the water in the wetland's shallow channel, creating tiny bubbles that rise to the surface and release oxygen into the water.
View of Harbor Wetland from Pier 4 (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
“The Harbor Wetland project was born out of an earlier Waterfront Campus Plan, also completed by Ayers Saint Gross. That project led to the design of a Floating Wetland Prototype, on which Ayers Saint Gross worked with the National Aquarium and Biohabitats, McLaren Engineering Group, and Kovacs, Whitney & Associates in continuation of Studio Gang’s EcoSlip concept. The knowledge gained from years of studying and refining the prototype became the basis for the design process of the implementation of the full-scale Harbor Wetland.”
Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium
Some views of the Harbor Wetland site before and during construction, and on opening day, August 8, 2024:
Before (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
Installation (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
Installation (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
Installation (Photo: Philip Smith, courtesy of National Aquarium)
