Awbury Arboretum is excited to announce the award of a two-year grant of $342,661 over 24 months for comprehensive signage from the William Penn Foundation Creative Communities program at the Arboretum.
The grant will cover the design, manufacture, and installation of three main entrance signs to welcome visitors, several kiosks with maps and bulletin boards, trail markers, directional signs, interpretive signs, and key plant markers. Funding will also cover hardscaping and landscaping around the entrance signs and maintenance for the first five years. Cloud Gehshan Design will oversee signage planning and design, and Studio | Bryan Hanes will design landscaping for the project.
Staff from Awbury and Cloud Gehshan will meet with partners, community members, and other stakeholders over the next few weeks to inform the project priorities. An open town hall community meeting will take place over Zoom on Thursday, January 19, at 5:30 pm.
The William Penn Foundation is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia region through efforts that increase educational opportunities for children from low-income families, ensure a sustainable environment, provide inclusive and equitable public spaces and arts and culture experiences, and advance philanthropy in the Philadelphia region.
Cloud Gehshan Design is a nationally renowned design firm in Philadelphia. Their previous work includes signage at Camden Children’s Aquarium, the National Air and Space Museum, Temple University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Fairmount Park, among many other notable sites.
Philadelphia landscape architecture firm Studio | Bryan Hanes’s work includes Awbury Arboretum’s Adventure Woods Natural Materials Playground, the Sister Cities Garden at Logan Square, Clark Park, and many other landscapes in the greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area.
More welcoming entrance signage and improved directional signage have long been a dream of Awbury Arboretum. Community focus groups and neighborhood organizations have consistently stressed that better signage is a mandatory inclusion component. We welcome you to join us in the journey toward greater community involvement–please bring your ideas and input to our meeting in January. Learn more and register on our website.
Once the private enclave of an extended Quaker family, Awbury Arboretum has been open to the public free of charge as a public park and arboretum for over 100 years. Located in a densely populated urban environment, it provides opportunities for everyone to learn and experience nature in its broadest sense, where people of all ages come to learn, grow, gather, relax, garden, contemplate, and play. Nature, history, and community intersect at Awbury, and the Awbury Arboretum Association is committed to stewarding these relationships and continuing to tell its story. Learn more at Awbury.org.
