Shake Shack installs a green wall
The Center City construction site is spiffed up.
Construction sites usually are drab affairs.
Not the Shake Shack coming to the corner of 20th and Sansom Street this summer.
The New York-based burger joint enlisted Mario Gentile and Philly's Shift_Design to design and build a living garden to make the plywood less like ... like plywood.
A corner park, if you will.
How spring-like! It's an array of custom panels and planters made from recycled steel filled with ivy, flowers, vines, and evergreen shrubs.
In a statement, Shake Shack says the installation "reimagines the form and function of the often uninspiring, plywood walls that surround the area, and invites the neighboring community to enjoy the lush foliage until the construction ends."
Shake Shack, after all, was born in a park, Madison Square Park.
The plants and planters will continue to live on after the wall comes down. Shake Shack will donate them to the Rittenhouse Square Flower Market for Children's Charities. The nonprofit organization hosts its signature French flower market in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, for the benefit of four annually-changing children's health and welfare service organizations, as well as for the maintenance of the Square.
This year, the Flower Market will be dedicated to a celebration of mothers and children, and will be held Wednesday, May 9th and Thursday, May 10th, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., during the week immediately preceding and as a tribute to Mother's Day.