Overview
- FloatLab, which arrived on Wednesday, June 10, was towed from a North Carolina shipyard by the tug Island Trader with help from a second tug called Gritty and has been moored to four steel columns at Bartram’s Garden.
- The bright yellow, 75-foot-wide ring was designed by J. Meejin Yoon and Höweler + Yoon and uses a ballast system that keeps parts of the platform level with the river as the tide rises and falls.
- Commerce Construction will complete roughly six weeks of on-site work, including installation of the pedestrian foot bridge that will connect visitors to the platform before its expected September 2026 opening.
- The $5.5 million project was funded by public and private sources, including the William Penn Foundation, Pennsylvania redevelopment funds, HUD, and the city, and was fabricated by East Coast Steel Fabrication in Hertford, North Carolina.
- Mural Arts and Bartram’s Garden plan to use FloatLab for school field trips, outdoor art programs, performances, fishing, kayaking and stewardship work, which city leaders say could boost neighborhood access to the river and encourage local conservation.