O.J. Baker Project
As outlined in the masterplan, this interpretive center should serve as “out-of-door exhibits and bulletin boards.” Signs and plaques should provide directional, informational, regulatory, and identification assistance. Simply put, the visitor’s center should be an orientation point for the arboretum. Based on this plan, I have narrowed the intent of this building down to this philosophy: our visitors center should be a “backstage building” while still compelling a visitor to visit it first.
The dictionary defines backstage (figuratively speaking) as being kept from public scrutiny; secret. I see backstage not as behind the stage. For example, the drummer of a band would be considered “backstage,” where as the lead singer would be “frontstage.” The drummer isn’t hidden from the crowd - he is still visible – but he fades into the background. He isn’t primary, but secondary, or maybe even tertiary.
The visitor should be able to see the center from the entrance path (from the parking lot), but not the whole thing, enticing the visitor to explore this structure. Since humans are drawn to man-made things, they would be drawn to the visitors center since it is the only built structure visible. Since nature is the primary reason to visit Pinecote, the visitor walks through the savanna and adjacent to the woodlands before entering the visitors center.
Since the savanna is mostly sunny, the visitors center will be bathed in sunlight for most of the day. To help with this, the building should be placed immediately north of a group of trees, so that shade will at least partially fall on the building. Also, to help with cooling, the building should be elevated and placed along a breeze corridor.
Coming from the parking lot, heading west, there is a canopy of trees that reach over the savanna from both sides. When I saw this view, I thought it was amazing, so I decided that I needed to capture that somehow. In the visitors center, there is a patio/porch deal that is open to the savanna in order to capture and highlight that view.
Also, since the savanna and woodlands are drastically different, they should be engaged in drastically different ways. The savanna seems, even though it is not, to be very open. I saw this as a sort of expansive space. The woodlands is basically the opposite- it’s very compressed. The building should mimic that in it’s transition spaces- expansive toward the savanna and compressed toward the woodland area.
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