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FUTURE NATURE PRESERVE
VISITOR AND EDUCATION CENTER
Clark County Wetlands Park, a 2900-acre, seven- by one-mile strip of land on the eastern edge of the Las Vegas Valley, borders both sides of Las Vegas Wash as it flows past Frenchman Mountain and the red sandstone of Rainbow Gardens on its way to Lake Mead.
In the largest open space in the Valley, the Park’s trail system encourages public recreation, leading visitors to appreciate the area’s natural wonders and linking to neighboring trail systems, north into Rainbow Gardens and east to the River Mountain and Lake Mead trails.
The Park and adjacent terrain also offer an introduction to the natural sciences, especially for young people. The Park jewel, the 130-acre Nature Preserve, demonstrates a wetlands ecology, nature’s unmatched water filtering and cleansing system, rich with plant and animal life.
Here is an unusual opportunity to study a desert wetlands, one which transforms polluted urban runoff into clean, healthful water. The Visitor and Education Center building, near the Park’s main entrance at the end of East Tropicana Avenue, anchors the Preserve’s south border. The Center fits integrally with its setting, connecting physically and visually to the outdoors, its long, low profile and subdued colors blending with the natural environment. The simple, folded roof plane angles upward from its northwest and southeast corners to greet approaching visitors and subtly signal its presence toward the scenic drive. The terrain next to Wetlands Park also makes an excellent outdoor classroom for geology and paleontology, as the desert exposes layers of ancient rock and sediment deposition with its fossil treasures. The Park offers habitat to most of Southern Nevada’s wildlife, including threatened or endangered species, and it presents a living laboratory for the study of desert plant communities, invading exoti cs and the nearly magical ability of plants to clean pollution from both our water and our air. The Visitor and Education Center’s program spaces, exhibit hall, auditorium and classrooms support concentrated field study in the Preserve. Here subjects can be examined closely, particularly the benefit wash restoration has on water quality, preserving wildlife and protecting Lake Mead and the Colorado River System.
The completed Visitor and Education Center is to serve as a primary field trip destination and learning center for school children; a cultural resource for residents, local clubs and convention groups; and as an example of appropriate and ecologically responsible architecture.
Because of the sensitive environment in which the Center is situated, Clark County Parks and Recreation has determined that the Center would benefit from certification by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program (LEED) of the U.S. Green Building Council. Its guidelines set high standards for durability, energy efficiency and indoor air quality. Four levels of certification are recognized by the LEED system, in ascending order: certification; silver; gold; and platinum. Clark County has set platinum certification as the goal of the Center. The final certification level will be determined after the Center is built and occupied.
Strategies
Strategies employed in meeting LEED standards include minimizing areas inaccessible to handicapped persons; creating shaded zones to reduce heat islands; using rain and gray water for irrigation; including recycled and renewable building materials in the building design; and reducing energy use with renewable energy sources for electrical and HVAC loads. The Center employs passive solar strategies as building orientation and window placement allow use of the sun for the primary interior light source, while exterior mesh panels next to windows subdue seasonal heat and glare.
HVAC Exhibit
The HVAC Exhibit (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), next to the Center’s administrative offices, offers the public a look at and an explanation of the building’s environment-friendly mechanical system.
Materials
Principles of ecological protection and conservation have determined selection of Visitor and Education Center materials. All are recyclable, renewable and durable materials, able to withstand extreme conditions likely to occur in the Wetlands Park area, such as wildfire and floods.
Entrance
To encourage immersion in the Park experience , a walk from the parking lot to the building takes visitors over a small segment of the trail system as it curves alongside the water of Las Vegas wash and the interpreted greenery of the wetlands. The building’s bold, crescent-shaped ramp extends invitingly toward approaching visitors. At the top of the east-west crescent, visitors encounter a cylindrical information kiosk, where curiosity may be both piqued and satisfied. Standing on the deck of the central courtyard, the kiosk’s shape echoes that of the circular courtyard which opens to the sky above and the wetlands below.
Flood Precautions
A pier system and flood control berms ensure safety from flash floods by elevating the Visitor and Education Center above the one hundred-year flood plain, directing the water passing below and allowing vegetation disturbed by construction to grow back to its natural state.
Courtyard
The courtyard interrupts the length of the opaque building mass, opening it to extended vistas and the natural influences of sun, wind and weather. Walking around the large circular opening in the deck, visitors may continue to Offices, the Bookstore, or to program spaces: west to Classrooms; south to the Auditorium and wetlands viewpoints; east to the Exhibit Hall and the Armchair Tour; or north to the ramp, down its east slope and out to the Nature Preserve trails.
Auditorium
Visitors in the darkened, 200-seat auditorium may view an introductory Wetlands Park video highlighting the history, geology and ecology of the Park, including the water system, plants and animals. As the program closes, projection screens rise, curtains part, sunlight floods in and a magnificent view of the wetlands unfurls southward toward Calico Ridge and Lake Mead, reinforcing the grandeur and significance of the wetlands. The auditorium is also a place for school children on field trips to enhance their wetlands learning experience with ranger-type programs, films and interactive ecological dramas.
Exhibits
Numerous large windows on the south wall of the 10,000 square foot Exhibit Hal l take twofold advantage of the abundant natural light: by decreasing use of artificial lighting and energy consumption; and by maintaining the connection to the outdoors, as sunlight shines in to be filtered and baffled into the voluminous space. The exhibits expand on information presented in the Auditorium, focusing primarily on three areas: the history of human occupation in the wetlands, including cultural artifacts of the Pueblo, Mohave, Paiute and early settlers; the geologic history of Las Vegas Wash, notorious for its continual cycle of erosion and sedimentation; and the biological makeup of the wetlands with exhibits of the macro- and micro-organic wetlands world of plant and animal life. Exhibits range from art to living display, diorama to interactive, larger-than-life replicas of the denizens of the Park. Throughout the facility, smaller exhibits are displayed informally with transition spaces between them, allowing visitors to absorb what they have just experienced before continuing to the next exhibit.
Armchair tour
The Armchair Tour offers an informal space where visitors may relax in comfort and enjoy real-time video displays of various areas throughout the Park as an alternative or complementary experience to walking the Nature Preserve trails or touring the Exhibit Hall.
The vaulted space opens to the outdoors with a wall of windows protected by exterior shade “fins” from the east and west horizontal
glare of the extreme summer sun. The insulated windows embrace northern views of the trails and ponds,
Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens.
*computer renderings by Dekker, Perich, Holmes, Sabatini Architects. |