Turtle Bay Exploration Park
Turtle Bay Exploration ParkRedding, California
As landscape architects, coordinating architects and exhibit designers, The Portico Group created a “living museum” on a 300-acre site divided by the Sacramento River. Turtle Bay is an educational institution focused on the environmental, historical, and cultural components of this river. Portico’s responsibilities included establishing an interpretive program and storyline, developing the building and site program, and coordinating architectural design with exhibits and visitor experience.
Tracy Aviary Destination Argentina!
Tracy AviarySalt Lake City, UT
This exhibit resulted from a concept plan overlaying migratory stories on the oldest and largest bird park in the United States — The Tracy Aviary. Destination Argentina! was the first step toward rejuvenating the aviary, bringing to life for visitors the dramatic story of the birds that leave the Great Salt Lake and head far south each winter.
Hatfield Marine Science Center Expansion
Oregon State UniversityNewport, Oregon
Located at Oregon State University, the Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) is a leading oceanographic science research institution. Since its inception, HMSC has opened to the public through its visitor wing. Portico’s work involved expanding the center’s lobby, exhibits, bookstore, parking and amenities.
Asian Highlands Exhibit
Hogle ZooSalt Lake City, UT
To transport visitors and animals to the Highlands of Asia, Portico completely changed the face and function of Hogle Zoo’s existing facility. The design team emerged with a beautiful highlands landscape and a time-aged village whose structures are clustered across the slopes that house Asia’s big cats. Endangered snow leopards, Amur leopards and Amur tigers prowl the fields, creeks, waterfalls, and pools – just as they do in the highlands.
LSU Burden Center Master Plan
LSU Property FoundationBaton Rouge, Louisiana
The plan for Louisiana State University AgCenter’s Burden Center property celebrates the legacy of Steele Burden and his vision for maintaining and interpreting a multi-faceted educational and research institution. Illustrating southwest Louisiana’s horticultural and agricultural history - spanning from the early days of settlement right up to the present - the Burden Center showcases a spectrum of agricultural practices, scientific research, and education. The Burden Center is perfectly positioned to create a world-class agronomic research station combining historical examples with innovative forest restructuring practices and scalable, sustainable agricultural practices.
Project components include a new botanic garden, as well as expansion of the Barton Arboretum, the existing Windrush Gardens, the Rural Life Museum, and numerous research fields.
Pacific Connections Garden
Seattle Department of Parks & RecreationSeattle, WA
The Pacific Connections Garden displays plants from five geographic regions around the Pacific Rim, each selected for its ecological appropriateness to the Puget Sound region. This is the first major undertaking to implement the Portico-designed Washington Park Arboretum Master Plan. The collections allow the visitor to compare and contrast plant communities of the Pacific Northwest with plants found in central Chile, eastern Asia, New Zealand and southeastern Australia. A stunning log shelter provides cover from inclement weather and a focus for interpretive materials, revealing the importance of these new collections to the gardener, horticulturist, and scientist.
Tropical Reef Aquarium
Point Defiance Zoo & AquariumTacoma, WA
The Tropical Reef Aquarium combines architecture, exhibitry and site design work to transport visitors to the South Pacific. The exhibit begins as a trail experience, leading from the interior of a South Seas island surrounded by lush tropical forest vegetation, to the beach overlooking an inner lagoon. Descending through coral headlands into a “blue hole” of the barrier reef, visitors emerge on the outer face of the reef in the deep, open ocean. Reef fish and open water fish, including sharks, can be seen in their respective habitats.
Mary Lowell Center
National Park Service, US Forest ServiceSeward, AK
For the planning of a new joint agency headquarters and visitor center for Kenai Fjords National Park and Chugach National Forest, Portico led a site selection study to analyze downtown Seward and its waterfront. Goals for the study were to strengthen downtown, stimulate private investment and complement other existing public waterfront visitor destinations. The chosen site will be developed to provide NPS and partnering agencies with an energy-efficient, year-round facility serving residents and tourists alike.
Korea National Marine Museum
Korea Ministry of Maritime Affairs and FisheriesBusan, South Korea
South Korea has deep historical and cultural ties to the ocean. With the goal of creating a world class museum and aquarium that would be an icon of national pride, Portico gathered, analyzed and organized various programmatic requirements, creating a comprehensive program that served as the foundation for a compelling concept. Taking visitors on an exciting ocean journey from the site’s shoreline to the depths of human imagination and adventure, visitors are immersed in compelling environments and stories through the integration of galleries, live animals, interactives, simulator rides, play areas and a variety of cutting-edge, high-tech theaters and exhibits.
Jilkaat Kwaan Cultural Heritage Center
Chilkat Indian VillageKlukwan, AK
Klukwan, a small, ancient, Alaska Native community positioned on the north bank of the Chilkat River in Southeast Alaska, is one of the last continuously inhabited Tlingit villages in the region. The Portico Group is proud to have assisted the village in master planning, design and documentation for the Jilkaat Kwaan Bald Eagle Observatory and Cultural Heritage Center. The first phase of this project is the new Hospitality House where guests will be served native foods and see exquisite art while touring the Traditional Knowledge Camp and the Village. The second phase is the Cultural Heritage Center, a repository for traditional crafts and ancient sacred objects, providing public access to these internationally known works of art.
Jaguar Cove
Woodland Park ZooSeattle, WA
The 4,000-square-foot Jaguar exhibit enclosure features a dense simulated tropical forest along a stream edge. Visitors enter the exhibit through the 28-foot-high archway of a fallen ceiba trunk. Moving along the length of this fallen tree, the visitor looks into the enclosure, separated from the powerful cats only by a continuous sheet of glass that spans from sandy beach floor to the log above. At the far end both visitors and jaguars occupy ledges within a cave, creating a rare “up close” experience with an incredible animal.
Issaquah Fish Hatchery
Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife, Friends of Issaquah HatcheryPortico worked with the Friends of Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (F.I.S.H.) for nearly a decade, touching every part of their site and operations from habitat restoration and site design to interpretive planning and development of a new Watershed Education Center. In the process, the historic hatchery has become an outdoor center for informal learning and a campus that never closes, becoming integral to the heart and identity for the community.
Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center
National Park ServiceOlympic National Park, WA
Aptly named Hurricane Ridge, this jewel in the Olympic National Park is bedeviled by weather, and was handicapped by previous remodels. The rain and snow, which often appear to fall upwards, thrill the visitors but create major weather-proofing problems. As part of a larger contract with the National Park Service, Portico increased the building’s utility, changed its roofline and weatherproofing, and gave it the generous and welcoming presence of a Northwest mountain lodge.
Golden Monkey Exhibit
Los Angeles Zoo, City of Los AngelesLos Angeles, CA
As the first phase of the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Asian Forest Concept Plan, the Golden Monkey exhibit takes advantage of existing topography. A stand of mature trees growing on sloping terrain highlights these charismatic tree-dwellers. The design provides a comfortable treetop habitat for monkeys, while a pavilion shelter places visitors right in the canopy for optimal viewing. Incorporating the traditional Chinese practice of feng shui in the placement of the architectural elements, the viewing pavilion and the night quarters was influenced by an analysis of the flow of energy on the site.
Beaver Lake Park
King County Facilities Management - ParksIssaquah, WA
From master plan to implementation, Portico led design for the development of Beaver Lake Park. The park includes a “Sports Meadow” with four ball fields, bleachers, restrooms, parking and support facilities, and a “Camp” area with picnicking, overnight cabins and a lodge to serve parks recreation programs. Outdoor nature education areas include trails into the woodlands and wetlands of the park site.
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo
City of San JoseSan Jose, CA
In the heart of San Jose an existing forty acre multi-use park holds opportunities for drama and fun, and a heightened interpretive experience. Capitalizing on complex site topography, creating themed circulation, and planning for new buildings and exhibits, we developed an immersive experience focused on children ages two through 10 and their families. This project represents the first LEED Gold certified amusement park and zoo in the United States.
- Architecture
- Landscape Architecture
- Interpretive Planning
- Exhibit Design
- Graphic Design
- Master Planning
Elephants of Asia
Los Angeles Zoo, City of Los AngelesLos Angeles, CA
This exhibit includes 3.6 acres of elephant habitat, with four interconnected yards oriented around a Thai-themed barn. In the entry plaza, life-sized steel elephant sculptures introduce visitors to the four Asian countries featured in the interpretive elements of the exhibit’s viewing areas. These elephant-inhabited areas include Thailand, India, China, and Cambodia. Visitors learn about the plight and status of elephants in each representative country, as well as gain insight into how the animals interact in the daily lives of people living in those regions.
Photography, Copyright 2011
Jamie Pham
Pearl Harbor Memorial Museum & Visitor Center
National Park Service, US NavyHonolulu, HI
The Memorial, with its dramatic and moving history, has become the most popular visitor attraction in Honolulu, and the annual visitation of 1.5 million is double the carrying capacity of the existing shore-side visitor center. The entire campus has been redesigned to accommodate more visitors and to better tell this important American story. The new museum and visitor center will extend the areas for visitor gathering and memorial ceremonies, expand museum exhibits, renovate the theaters for the introductory film presentation, improve visitor amenities and provide new offices for park staff. Incorporating universal accessibility and sustainable design principles, the new museum and visitor center are LEED Gold certified.
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