Facilities Planning
The oldest public arboretum in North America
The Arnold Arboretum was established by Harvard University in 1872 on land bequeathed to Harvard by Benjamin Bussey and with funds entrusted to Harvard by the estate of James Arnold. The Arboretum was initially envisioned as a research station, with a mission to increase our knowledge of woody plants (trees, shrubs and vines) through research and education. The land for this endeavor was owned by Harvard University, and its first director, Charles Sprague Sargent, was charged with assembling a collection of woody plants from around the world, and conducting research with this collection.
Sargent had a broader vision for the Arboretum. He believed that a research station could also serve as a public park and outdoor museum. In 1882, after a decade of work by Sargent and his friend Frederick Law Olmsted, the land of the Arboretum was given to the City of Boston to become part of its new Olmsted-designed park system. The City in turn leased the land back to Harvard University for 1,000 years to permit the Arboretum to conduct research.
A world-class research institution
After several years of program planning and review, the Arboretum has reaffirmed Sargent's vision and its mission of research and education on plants in the context of a historic landscape that serves the visiting public. The Arboretum is dedicated to:
- keeping its collections and facilities relevant to new and emerging directions in plant science research;
- strengthening its role in science education and in training of professionals in the growing field of landscape design and preservation;
- maintaining and improving its historic and scientific landscape designed by Olmsted and Sargent.
The Arboretum’s living collections and the Arboretum’s capacity to grow research plant materials make it ideally suited to support new research directions in biodiversity, systems biology, genomics, and comparative developmental biology. However, these new and emerging directions in plant science research also require research-quality laboratories, greenhouses, and growth chambers, which the Arboretum presently lacks in its existing facilities. Therefore, the Arboretum proposes to build a new state-of-the-art research facility for scientists and other visiting scholars, which will allow the Arboretum to maintain its position as one of the world’s leading centers for the study of plants.
Weld Hill Research and Administration Building
The Arnold Arboretum plans to construct a 43,500 square foot research and administration facility on a 14 acre parcel of land adjacent to the public park and known as Weld Hill. The Weld Hill project will provide researchers at the Arboretum with new laboratories and growing facilities, including greenhouses, growth chambers and nurseries. In addition the director’s office and central administration of the Arboretum will be housed in the facility. The design of the project employs sustainable “green” architecture including natural building materials (wood, brick, stone), water retention and management technologies, and geothermal heating and cooling systems.
The Arboretum has received approval for its Institutional Master Plan that described the project in detail and is available elsewhere on this site. The project underwent a thorough public process review and was approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in August 2007, and by the Boston Zoning Commission and the Parks Commission in January 2008. Construction will begin in March of 2008 and will be completed in 20 to 24 months. The construction entrance to the project is located at 1300 Centre St. in Roslindale, which is also the future address of the facility.
Further information about the project, including regular construction updates, can be accessed at http://www.construction.fas.harvard.edu/WeldHill/weldhill.htm. A site plan and additional images of the proposed design are posted at http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/aboutus/drawings.html.