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Mural Arts Will Not Rest Until They Do Cool Stuff Everywhere

When the Mural Arts Program isn’t busy putting murals together and educating the youth about art, they’re creating outdoor classroom space. At Bodine High School, where the amazing Reading The Flow resides, there is now chainlinkGREEN (above), “a trellis/bench structure [that] uses parking lot material that was removed when the gardens were constructed, wood that was salvaged and donated from old local theaters, and concrete rubble donated from numerous local construction sites to create a sanctuary and outdoor classroom space for Bodine.” chainlinkGREEN will be featured at the 13th Annual International Achitecture Exhibition at La Binenale di Venezia this fall as one of 61 projects showcased in the Common Ground exhibit. Oh, and it also looks cooler than anything we ever had in our schoolyards.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 at 2:40 pm.

  • RSR

    My boys and I walk past that almost daily 10 months a year on our way to St. Peter the Apostle School.  We watched the construction progress over the last couple years.

    A crucial element of the project is water retention, rather than runoff.  Previously, almost the entire property of Bodine High School was hard surfaced and impervious to rainfall.  From here it’s downhill to the low point in the neighborhood, Bodine St at Wildey St.  Residents in that vicinity have suffered flooding many times over the last decade…some natural, from heavy rainfall events, and some man made, from water main ruptures.

    This project opened up large sections of the parking lot and sidewalk surfaces (while retaining the material on site as planting and structural elements–so no landfilling it) to capture and slowly release stormwater.  It’s aligned with a new priority of the water dept:  slow the rate of rainfall entering the sewer systems.

    The chain link looks a bit stark now, but looking at the plantings behind it, I assume the vegetation will grow up and form a canopy over the seating area, obscuring the fencing.

    Our old buddy Brad Maule captured a picture of the George St facade of the high school in his May 2011 visit to Philly:  http://mauleofamerica.com/philly2011/  (first shot after cover pic)

  • anymouse

    assembled by famous AIDS crew graffiti artists