Franklin Park Conservatory North Star Master Plan Columbus, Ohio
Role
Planning / Landscape Architecture
People Involved
Jeffrey Pongonis, Andrew Overbeck, Karen McCoy, Richard Mills, Bridget Maloney
Typology
Master Plan, Conservatory & Botanical Garden
Project Timeline
2024 - 2025
Collaborators
Phyto Studio, AECOM, TAIT (Thinkwell), Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Award
2024 OCASLA Honor Award
Master planning for future campus expansion and visitor experience
MKSK led a multidiscipline team to conceptualize a gardens-first master plan. The Master Plan establishes a bold 25-year vision for the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens aligned with the future of greater Columbus. Through community engagement and stakeholder conversations, the Master Plan process uncovered a collective vision to address both the current needs and future aspirations of the Conservatory. The priority mission of these plans will make turning Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens into a premier destination for the city and the region.
Central to the plan was an organizing philosophy to be ‘Gardens Forward,’ a vision which emerged from a collaborative process with Conservatory leadership, Board members, and a dedicated Steering Committee, aligning institutional priorities with community needs. The master plan framework established three primary pillars — Horticulture, Experience, and Community. This heralds a bold new era that expands the focus of the Conservatory to provide a diverse array of permanent indoor and outdoor gardens, highlighting the year-round beauty of native and ecological plantings, as well as becoming a destination for Columbus residents and visitors to experience cultural and natural events. This strategy aims to redefine the Conservatory as the hub of botanical art, ecological understanding, and cultural engagement for the Columbus community and beyond.
"Landscape has the power to connect people to nature in profound ways. Our vision for the North Star Master Plan is to create a living, evolving campus where every garden, pathway, and public space inspires curiosity, celebrates beauty, and deepens our relationship with the natural world."
- Jeffrey Pongonis, FASLA, PLA, Principal Landscape Architect, MKSK
Horticulture prioritized a strategy to create immersive, signature environments while strengthening circulation and connectivity. Spatially, the plan reconfigures both programmatic and support areas — inside and out—to improve operational efficiency and elevate the visitor experience. At the urban scale, it establishes a framework for partnerships that deepens community engagement with Franklin Park, the surrounding neighborhoods, and the City of Columbus. Pivotal to unifying all these strategies together and developing lasting connections between Franklin Park and the adjacent neighborhood was the reorientation of the visitor entry experience. The current orientation of the Conservatory front door is hidden from park users and limits the ability to have an experience that is inclusive of both the park and the Conservatory. By relocating the entry and organizing the site as a cohesive, central destination, the plan unlocks the shared potential of the Conservatory and Franklin Park—creating new public interfaces, placing horticulture at the forefront and reinforcing connections to the broader civic landscape.
Central to the Master Plan conceptualization is the reimagined Wolfe Terrace and iconic Grand Garden, which provide a stunning foreground to the newly renovated John F. Wolfe Palm House & Dorothy M. Davis Show House. This helps catalyze future phases with a variety of programmed and thematic garden rooms and support spaces, providing a mix of environments that promote connection with the landscape, immerse guests in beautiful and varied planting, and encourage social engagement.
The ambitious plan for Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens provides a horticultural and civic gem for the city, by connecting the community to a destination of discovery, learning and ecological interaction, with year-round botanical experiences.
