Strawbery Banke Museum tells stories. Their mission is to promote understanding of people and the value of community through encounters with the history and the ongoing preservation of a New England waterfront neighborhood. Given current and future climate conditions, “ongoing preservation” has become more of a challenge. While the museum presents the history of this neighborhood from the 17th to the mid-20th century, it is also telling the unfolding story of site evolution and the adaptation that it requires.

While the museum presents the history of this neighborhood from the 17th to the mid-20th century, it is also telling the unfolding story of site evolution and the adaptation that it requires.

The effects of climate change are felt intensely on the museum’s 10 acre campus, particularly in the form of flooding. Astronomically high tide, storm surge, and high-volume rain events impact the campus with increasing frequency. But water is a key part of the neighborhood’s story, too. The museum’s ongoing exhibit, “Water has a Memory”, tells the story of how this neighborhood’s development was centered on water.

Strawbery Banke Museum Current & Future 500 Year Flood Plan

 

The Puddle Dock neighborhood of Portsmouth, NH grew up around a natural inlet from the Piscataqua River. European colonization of this area gave way to a commercial port city for which docks and wharves were constructed throughout the river front. At the turn of the twentieth century the tidal Puddle Dock inlet was filled to create continuous solid ground – or perhaps not so solid ground. Not only has this infill created drainage and ground-water problems, but it has also obscured the historic landscape of the inlet and the infrastructure of the docks, some of which still exist today, below the ground surface. The infrastructure designed to keep water out of the area is failing under new conditions.

 

Puddle Dock06
19th Century View of Liberty Flag Pole from Puddle Dock

The museum, like many other preservation organizations, is in a critical moment of determining what preservation looks like in the context of failing infrastructure and increased tides and storms. One way they are addressing how to manage the water on their campus is the 2022 Stormwater Management Plan. Placework worked closely with Horsley Witten Group , the museum, the City of Portsmouth, and stakeholders in the South End neighborhood to develop this plan. It outlines several strategies designed be deployed over time, as funding and other related projects allow.

More recently, our design team has been joined by Stimson Landscape Architecture as we work to reimagine the campus landscape to support both storm surges and tidal flooding. The goal is to reconceive the Puddle Dock area so that it can still support the museum’s seasonal skating rink and community programs while also retaining water and reinforcing natural systems with native plantings and retention. The team has developed an initial concept to integrate this resilience landscape with planning parking upgrades and a reconceived entrance to the campus that will enhance the visitor experience.

 

SBM PLAN
Strawbery Banke Museum Site Concept Plan

Strawbery Banke Museum is making its way forward in a changing landscape. Its physical landscape is changing, the outlook of threats is changing, and the goals of preservation institutions are changing, too. Our role as their architect and advisor is to serve as an interpreter; to hold the mission of the institution and the experience of the visitor in mind as we work to craft technical solutions that support these primary goals. It is an ongoing challenge for institutions such as this to tell their story while they’re writing it. But it encourages us all to think about the stories we want to tell the next generation, and to begin to write stories of our future.