Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle Design Commission recognized five recent public projects that “exhibit superior design” and “foster interaction with the public and enhance Seattle neighborhoods” at a ceremony in Seattle’s City Hall. “The Woodland Park Zoo Penguin Exhibit is a fantastic example of integrative design…(and) …has lead to a design that goes well beyond showcasing the penguins, their environment and survival.”

MCD was present at the 12/03/09 event and we’re very pleased and honored to be recognized as one of the (many) team members.

Studio Hanson/Roberts designed the exhibit. MCD developed the graphic design for the project.

http://woodlandparkzblog.blogspot.com/

SEATTLE DESIGN COMMISSION RECOGNIZES PUBLIC PROJECTS

Mayor Greg Nickels will join the Seattle Design Commission to recognize five recent public projects that exhibit superior design. The projects include a public park, a master plan, infrastructure improvements, and a new zoo exhibit. The Seattle Design Commission presents the awards for design excellence every two years after reviewing public projects that foster interaction with the public and enhance Seattle neighborhoods*. Five projects in total are being honored.

Woodland Park Zoo Humboldt Penguin Exhibit

“The Woodland Park Zoo Penguin Exhibit is a fantastic example of integrative design. Adherence to a comprehensive, well-defined scope and a vigorous process has lead to a design that goes well beyond showcasing the penguins, their environment and survival. The project achieves a new benchmark of impressive sustainability and multicultural educational objectives and includes the capacity for on- going monitoring and adjustment. The exhibit’s low-key attitude and careful attention to design fit strengthens a significant entrance to the zoo and reinforces the overall legibility of its environment.”

(From the City of Seattle and Seattle Design Commission Press Release)

*Past recipients include: distinctive civic and cultural projects and parks, buildings and spaces throughout Seattle including the Seattle Central Library (Rem Koolhaas, Office of Metropolitan Architecture; LMN Architects); Olympic Sculpture Park  (Weiss/Manfredi Architects; Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture) and Fremont Peak Park (GGLO).

Though we’re known for our business-savvy solutions, sometimes a project comes along that is just plain fun.  Our latest? The penguin exhibit at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. Info and photos after the jump.

Though we’re known for our business-savvy solutions, sometimes a project comes along that is just plain fun.  Our latest? The Humbolt penguin exhibit at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.

The Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) recently gave a serious makeover to the 62-year old exhibit, which had originally been designed for seals and sea lions. We were honored to join a stellar team that included WPZ specialists and the exhibit designers: Studio Hanson/Roberts.

The new, $6.5 million, 17,000 sq. ft. outdoor exhibit presents an authentic view of the rugged, arid coastline of Peru, home to the penguins.

Our job? To create environmental graphics to make visitors feel they’d stepped into the Peruvian fishing village of Punta San Juan, at the largest Humboldt penguin conservation zone in the world.

We developed Peruvian-style graphics and applied them to murals, gates and other graphic elements to greet, inform, and persuade visitors they were in a remote village in South America. We used the same graphic style to develop donor recognition materials for partners and friends of the project. And in a proud first for our studio, we designed a graphic celebrating the merits of guano.

The real star of the show: the penguins. Visitors watch thru large walls of glass as the birds swim and dive. “The birds enjoy the public. They like to look (back) at them through the glass,” said a zoo keeper. “They like little kids with shiny shoes and sunglasses and fast-moving hands.”

http://www.zoo.org/penguins/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBYc_aO14jU&feature=fvsr

Project Team:

Woodland Park Zoo (Scott Vance, interpretive exhibit specialist: Monica Lake, project manager); Studio Hanson/Roberts (Becca Hanson and Jim McDonough – exhibit design); Dillion Works (fabricator of the graphic elements).