Nature Conservancy Visitor Center Wins International Design Award
Public Tours of Award-Winning Visitor Center Start April 23
Salt Lake City, Utah—13 April 2005—The Nature Conservancy’s Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve Visitor Center has won a prestigious Society of Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) Award, presented in annual national competition for graphic design projects. Public tours of the preserve visitor center led by naturalist guides will begin Saturday, April 23 (see below for tour schedule and sign up info).
The SEGD Design awards recognize the world’s best examples of environmental graphic design, and include work such as wayfinding projects, exhibit graphics and identity programs. This year’s 44 winners were chosen from 330 project entries submitted from around the world. The Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve merit award will be officially recognized at a ceremony at the 2005 SEGD Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans in early June.
“Our main goal is to excite people about the Great Salt Lake and its incredible habitats and birdlife,” said Dave Livermore, Utah State Director of The Nature Conservancy. “In building the visitor center, we wanted to create something unique, artistic and educational.”
The visitor center consists of an open-air pavilion, one-mile boardwalk trail through prime bird-watching habitat, and a 30-foot-high observation tower—all constructed of recycled trestlewood. It also features more than 34 exhibits, ranging from 7-foot-tall curved aluminum bird panels to small colorful tile and plaque elements ingrained in the boardwalk under visitors’ feet. Poetry, art, photography and educational facts are interwoven on the exhibits to give them a unique tone and wide audience appeal.
“The exhibits were also designed to complement the unusual architecture of the visitor center and the distinct habitats of the preserve,” said Livermore. “As visitors explore the center, they come across exhibits of all different sizes, shapes, and presentations—intended to make them stop and contemplate their surroundings.”
To create the unique visitor center exhibits, The Nature Conservancy worked with SeaReach Ltd., a firm specializing in educational and interpretive display, based in Oregon. To design the overall visitor center experience, the Conservancy also worked with local landscape architect James Bach of Bach & Associates.
With spring underway, the Conservancy is encouraging Utahns to get out and see the award-winning visitor center. Naturalist guides will lead public tours one Saturday a month through the birdwatching season. (See tour schedule below.) The first tour is scheduled for Saturday, April 23, the day after Earth Day from 8 am to 10 am. Tour participants will identify seasonal birdlife, learn about the incredible migratory journeys of key shorebird species, and explore the unique habitats of the Lake ecosystem. For more information and directions go to http://www.nature.org/utah.
SEGD is an international non-profit educational organization providing resources for design specialists in the field of environmental graphic design, architecture, and landscape, interior, and industrial design. For a complete list of this year’s design winners, visit http://www.segd.org/awards/2005.html.
2005 Naturalist Guided Tour Schedule
The Nature Conservancy Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve
Sign up now for a guided tour of the new visitor center at The Nature Conservancy's Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve.
Tours will begin at 8 am at the visitor center and will be held on the following Saturdays:
April 23
May 21
June 18
July 16
August 20
September 17
Space is limited, so please contact KaRyn Daley at (801) 531-0999 or kdaley@tnc.org to reserve your place. For more information and directions, visit nature.org/utah.
GROUP TOURS: If you plan to take a group of more than 10 people to the visitor center, separate from the public tours described above, please pre-arrange your visit with The Nature Conservancy by calling (801) 531-0999.
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The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have protected more than 12 million acres in the United States and helped protect more than 80 million acres in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. In Utah, The Nature Conservancy has completed over 140 conservation projects protecting nearly 900,000 acres of public and private land statewide.
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