Singh, VirajitaMendoza, Enrique2021-08-172021-08-172021-02https://hdl.handle.net/11299/223195The Children’s Museum plans to welcome people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities living in or visiting Region 5. To achieve its mission, the children’s museum will deliberately serve: • Children 12 years and under with a high priority on children 2 through 6 years. • Multi-generational families and classroom field trips • Early care and learning professionals, elementary and middle school educators • Children and care-givers experiencing participation barriers Many families in the region experience barriers and a lack of access to early childhood resources. It is a goal of The Children’s Museum to identify, address, and prevent barriers so that all families are able to participate in both the development and the enjoyment of the emerging children’s museum. Section One of this report, introduces the project and provides a brief context and history of the area, demographic data, highlights of past master planning efforts and a timeline of events. Section Two, Research, features various sustainable building guidelines and design principles, as well as regional, national, and international project precedents relevant to the museum design. This section also covers topics such as regenerative design, risk management, design elements, transition space, and accessibility as important aspects of designing built environments for nature play. Section Three, Community Engagement, documents community participation and input given by community members, partners, and consulting experts. The process of community engagement during the phase of this project was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Section Four, design elements, identifies key design intentions, purposes, and several design elements for potential inclusion in the perspective museum. Section Five, Recommendations, synthesizes critical design considerations emerging from community engagement, research, precedents and design elements and provides a set of recommendations for future use.This planning project, of which this report was an outcome, was funded by the Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership, Extension and led by the Design for Community Resilience program of Center for Sustainable Building Research, College of Design at the University of Minnesota. This project was completed in conjunction with a Legacy Grant awarded to the Children’s Museum to develop a regional children’s museum. Project goals included: • To further develop, record, and analyze ideas related to the Region 5 Children’s Museum and Nature Play Institute in the 5-county region of Cass, Crow Wing, Todd, Wadena, and Morrison counties in Minnesota. • To provide best practices and resources in planning and developing museum architecture, landscape, exhibit, and program design, ensuring all museum experiences connect visitors with nature. • To document all practices and resources in a comprehensive planning document.enRegion FiveNature PlayChildren's MuseumReport