Creating a Floating Wetland in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor

Ayers Saint Gross collaborated with the National Aquarium on the National Aquarium Harbor Wetland, an ambitious floating wetland project designed to educate visitors while reinvigorating natural ecosystems into Baltimore’s inner harbor. Located between Piers 3 and 4, the Harbor Wetland is a 10,000 square foot floating structure that allows visitors to immerse themselves in a salt marsh habitat like those that existed in the space hundreds of years ago.

Principal Amelle Schultz, a landscape architect and planner who led the design team for the effort, wrote about the design process and results in a recent article for Urban Land magazine, “Bringing an Innovative Outdoor Wetland Exhibit to Baltimore’s National Aquarium.” Of the project, she writes:

Amelle walks readers through the genesis of the project, dating back to a Waterfront Campus Plan Ayers Saint Gross worked on in 2019. She explains the key vision for the project — that urban spaces can and should coexist with natural ecosystems — and provides deep insights into the structure’s design. She also shares about the project’s collaborative design process, which brought in numerous engineering and design firms as well as local, state, and federal agencies.

Read the full article at Urban Land.