Roles
Executive Leadership
Vision and Conception
Creative Direction
Research
Stakeholder Engagement
Production
Project Management
Collaborators
Sparks and Sullivan
DAO Architecture
The Bruno Family
Hacienda CDC
Infinity Images
The Good Mod
Premier Press
Integrity Structures, LLC
Summary
Created and built an interactive, tactile visitor experience to awaken visitors’ curiosity, introduce them to the flora and fauna they might see, and increase their observational skills before they set out to explore the 900-acre park.
In 2018, the Metro Council and Parks and Nature leadership decided it was time to finally replace the cramped, deteriorating, unheated rangers’ cabin. They needed modern offices for the growing ranger and naturalist teams, and a welcome center where they could greet and check in visitors, as well as educate people about the best ways to explore the park. On the heels of completing the Park Finder, they asked me to create the visitors’ experience. It felt like the perfect growth experience after rebranding Metro and producing the online park finder to now take on a project in three dimensions. The Oxbow Welcome Center —with it’s larger-than-life etching of the logo on the exterior wall; expansion of the signature graphics to new brochures, kiosks, and maps; and incorporation of the Park Finder amongst other educational tools— became the most comprehensive experience of the Metro brand to date, introducing a million visitors a year to their Metro government.
Here’s some of what I did on the project:
Interpretive Concept - Oxbow Park’s 900 acres envelope a W-shaped curve of the Sandy River. Here, visitors walk amongst old-growth Douglas Firs and majestic sword ferns in the Ancient Forest, fish for salmon alongside the rushing snowmelt of the Sandy River, and search for signs of (or even spot!) native elk, bears and mountain lions. Oxbow is beloved by many Portlanders, as it was the first place they ever camped. There’s no WiFi access within the park.
I was tasked with introducing visitors to this broad, sweeping experience in only 12’ x 14’ of space. Rather than fill the walls with words in many different languages, or push people to use their phones, I decided to forgo language and technology almost completely. The experience introduces visitors to the still, quiet observational skills needed to find things in nature. The experience rewards people who look closely, follow their curiosity, and explore. That’s because everywhere you turn inside the Welcome Center, you discover something new, from comparing the size of your foot to a black bear’s, to studying the camouflaged plumage of a great horned owl so you might spot them on your walk, to learning how to identify a Douglas Fir cone by reading about the Indigenous story of a little mouse who tucked himself inside a Douglas Fir cone to hide from a fire.
Execution - A sidewalk etching of the Sandy River leads visitors from the outdoor kiosk through the front door and delivers them to the 6’ x 6’ perspective map showing the Sandy’s source from Mt. Hood. Animal tracks embedded in the concrete wander from the riverine pattern to laser-engraved likenesses of their animals on the walls. Visitors can peruse bamboo cards showing seasonal flora and fauna on the front, and turn them over to read bilingual descriptions of their lifecycle and how to spot them during their visit. Kids and adults love searching for wildlife cutouts hidden in the core-10 steel gate which separates the welcome area from the rangers’ offices. They can pick up bilingual brochures to learn how to navigate the park, the best ways to use the camping areas and adventure out on their own using the self-guided kid’s nature walk. All the brochures were co-created with local Indigenous and LatinX community members to help overcome any access barriers and boost their interactivity and enjoyment during their visit. A tablet-size version of the Park Finder framed in Douglas Fir introduces visitors to Metro’s other parks, and ties the parks together with the Oregon Zoo display. It’s the only piece of interactive technology in the experience.
Client & Producer - I managed 10 subcontractors and a fellow Metro communication specialist to bring the vision to life on time and within budget to create Metro’s most integrated brand experience to date.
Stakeholder Engagement - I worked across three Metro departments and five city, regional and state park agencies to create materials.
Co-creative Community Research & Engagement - I hired Indigenous and Latinx community members of all ages to give their input and ideas on what and how to create the materials. This led to creating a series of signs based on stories of local leaders histories with the Park. Working with Parks and Nature leaders, we featured the Black woman who saved the old growth forest from destruction when she led Multnomah Parks in the 1970s; the local Dr. who led a lawsuit to remove a dam upriver and designate the Sandy River —and therefore Oxbow’s river frontage— as a National Wild and Scenic River; and the story of generations of Indigenous peoples who followed the salmon upriver and hunted deer and elk in the area where the park now stands.
You can read more about the construction and opening of the Welcome Center in Our Big Backyard, Metro Parks and Nature’s magazine.
A riverine etching of the Sandy River begins at the sidewalk in front of the outdoor kiosk…
continues across the patio, and through the front door…
ending at the perspective map of the park. The map is a mirror image of the river’s course the visitor just walked.
Once visitors follow the riverine etching inside, they find tracks embedded in the polished concrete floor. The tracks lead to laser-engraved images of the animals that would make them. This quiet, curious sense of observation and discovery emulates what it’s like to look for traces of wildlife in the woods or along the Sandy River’s edge. The design welcomes first-time visitors to nature as well as seasoned trackers. Hopefully it teaches visitors to be on the lookout for the same tracks and animals during their visit.
The entire Welcome Center area is only 13’ x 16’ so it had to utilize as much space as possible while giving the visitor and space room to breathe. Here, we see (from left to right) a poured concrete wall creating a seamless connection to the main wall outside, a sliding Douglas Fir door leading to a conference room, a wall of seasonal wildlife cards, a cut-out core 10 steel gate leading to the rangers’ offices, the perspective map, and the reception desk. The riverine etching and cougar tracks run along the bottom.
Wildlife cards (14” x 14”) are printed on a bamboo base, set inside a groove on each shelf, and rotated in and out based on the season to create an up-to-date wildlife calendar. When visitors pick them up and turn them over, they see a short description of each species in English and Spanish.
The 6’ x 6’ perspective map is printed on see-through fabric and backlit by dimmable LED bulbs. The design shows the Sandy River valley cutting through Oxbow Park, and features relevant visitor park landmarks. The map traces the Sandy River’s headwaters to glaciers atop Mt. Hood, or as Indigenous Chinook speakers call it, Wy’East. Notably, in this map, cardinal north is positioned to the left, a fact which drove Metro cartographers a little mad. ;-)
From left to right, we find elk, river otter, beaver, blue heron, human and Douglas squirrel engraved into the wraparound Douglas Fir reception-desk skirt. The concept revolves around showing interesting, non-verbal information at children’s height so they can get lost in the images while their parents retrieve logistics for their visit. Rather than identify the animals with both their English and Spanish names, presenting them without identification encourages visitors' to ask questions.
Under the brochure shelf, we see coyote, white-tailed deer fawn, rabbit and black bear. Above the bear is a smaller, tablet-sized version of the Metro Park Finder so visitors can find other parks to visit after their time at Oxbow, and knits together visitors’ experience here with their time at the Oregon Zoo’s Discovery Center where they can find the larger touchscreen version of the application.
We established a more robust and flexible kiosk for the parks system with this new design. The layout includes a large map, a seasonally changing wildlife panel, and camping, park and activities brochures to help people get the most out of their visit. It also includes a place to post articles from Our Big Backyard magazine, and time-sensitive posters from the rangers. The new layout became a brand standard repeated across the parks system.