Visitor Centre Design | Ocean City Visitor Center | Guanzhou | China | Synthesis Design + Architecture

The design of the Ocean City Visitor Center responds to its beautiful beachfront site by incorporating the fluid language of the ocean, integrating the built mass with the natural landscape, and providing privileged views of the pristine sand beach and the surrounding development of Ocean City. The fluid and dynamic lines created by these natural phenomenon will provide a visual connection between the project, the landscaping, the beach, and the South China Sea.

Rather than consider the visitor center, the tower, and the sculpture plaza as three distinctly separate structure each of them is viewed an articulated moment within a continuous field of flow which visually and literally connects the surrounding buildings, the beach, and the sea. These articulations are merged into a constant morphing, peeling, and blending of the natural topography to form landscape, boardwalk, building, plaza, stair, bridge, portal, and tower.......more

Architectural Design Competition | Visitor Center Design | Giants Causeway | Ireland | OFF Architecture

The legend attributes the formation of the Giants Causeway the giant Finn McCool. He built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart called Benandonner. If the geological formation of the site is not enough to satisfy the imagination, that rationality is difficult to popularize a local phenomenon with no other link with the surrounding territory. At first glance the building does not seek to blend into the landscape, it would appear more like the UFO that was used to transport the giant. But the center is far from returning to conflict with the site, its emergence on the one hand generates a strong signal to locate mineral deliberately event below, but above all allows to hide the huge parking area. Its material and its geometry plays a key role in its integration, and it takes the color and consistency of basalt, form which emerged from one side breaks to completely disintegrate in contact with the site. Contamination of the envelope by grasses and mosses completes its assimilation......more

Visitor Center Design | Architectural Competition | The Water House By mjolk

"The idea for the Water House came out of a public architectural competition to design a visitor center for the water reservoir Zeliv. We decided to give the building legs so that it might look down upon the wild watery landscape. The airborne mass of the house is an observatory offering visitors views of the various biotopes formed by the ponds below."....mjolk

Warragamba Dam Visitor and Operations Centre (VOC) | Lahznimmo Architects

Lahznimmo Architects teamed up with Landscape Architects Spackman + Mossop to form a Joint Venture, LNSM, for the Warragamba Dam Master Plan, Recreation Areas, Visitor Centre and Operations Complex. LNSM were awarded the project after a two stage Expression of Interest followed by a short listed detailed submission. The first part of the commission involved preparing a new master plan for the entire Warragamba Dam site which was required after the major intervention works of the new $500 million spillway.

The second stage involves the preparation of design and documentation for the major components of the Master Plan, including the $6 million Visitor Information Centre and Operations Complex.

National tourist routes | Romsdalen, Norway By Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter

location: Romsdalen, Norway
program: National tourist routes
client: Norwegian public roads administration
commision type: Invited Competition 1st prize
in cooperation with Multiconsult 13.3 landscaping (2004)
status: Under construction
year: 2004 - 2010


The project will enhance the experience of the Trollstigen plateau’s location and nature. Thoughtfulness regarding features and materials will underscore the site’s temper and character, and well-adapted, functional facilities will augment the visitor’s experience. The architecture is to be characterised by clear and precise transitions between planned zones and the natural landscape. Through the notion of water as a dynamic element –from snow, to running and then falling water- and rock as a static element, the project creates a series of prepositional relations that describe and magnify the unique spatiality of the site.....more

Visitor Information Center Chicago, Illinois | UrbanLab

The Visitor Information Center uses information as an architectural design tool and material. Public buildings and spaces directly reflect the ideas and technologies of an era. The present era is defined by ubiquitous flows of data and information. These flows are the most radical forces currently contributing to the changes in both the form of architecture and the mutation of urban space.

The proposal for the Visitor Information Center has essentially the same programmatic purpose as the World Wide Web: a flowing interactive space within which people (purposefully and/or randomly) meet, communicate, and exchange information. The information center is a hub within which global networks of information-exchange, and a singular site-specific context for information-exchange, conjoin.

The exterior and interior façades of the Visitor Information Center are activated by both site- and city-specific information, and constantly adjust as different events unfold around the city. The interior space of the Visitor Information Center is designed as an archive for contemporary and historical information on Chicago: a timeline connects the exterior building façade (introducing visitors to city-wide environmental information) and the interior building façade (introducing visitors to specific destinations of interest in Chicago). The building façade is designed as an ongoing medium of exchange. This proposal was part of an invited competition by the City of Chicago......images at UrbanLab

Visitor Centre by Olaf Gipser Architects | Oostvaardersplassen

Emerging Dutch practice Olaf Gipser Architects have been announced the winners of nature reserve, Oostvaardersplassen's competition to design its new visitor centre, with their striking proposal for the complex's largest single structure so far.
A popular tourist spot, Oostvaardersplassen in the Dutch province of Flevoland, is an over-5.500 hectare area of wild wetland and bird nature reserve, only a short car ride from Amsterdam. A few decades ago, local authorities and the reserve's owners, Dutch State Forest Management, set in motion plans to connect the park with neighbouring green areas, in order to form a 15,000-hectare large and spectacular nature and recreation area, called Oostvaardersland.
Teaming up with Vista Landscape and Urban Design as well as Arup Netherlands, the Olaf Gipser architects worked on the new building complex project for almost a year. Their design was recently awarded first prize, following a two-stage competition among over 100 submissions....more

Boh Visitor Center/Cameron Highlands,Malaysia/ZLG Design

More images here

Architect: ZLG Design
Team: Huat Lim, Susanne Zeidler, Jimmy Wong, Mary Verhaeghe, Hong Chieh
Location: Sungai Palas, Cameron Highland, Boh Visitor Centre, Malaysia
Locale description: Tea plantations and factory
Site area: 12,168.32 sqm
Built area: 1,233.8 sqm
Building start: November 2005
BUilding completion: July 2006
Budget: USD$498,652.29
Via

crosby observatory,england | duggan morris architects

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High Coast nature centre | Sweden | White

The task for the competition was clear: To create a nature centre that acts as a gateway to the countryside, a building that sharpens the appetite for the main course.
“Our task was not to make the building the final destination, but rather to generate interest in continuing along the mountainside, visiting the famous cave halfway up to the peak or exploring Skuluskogen forest,” says Ulla Antonsson. “That’s why we were also careful to work in harmony with the existing surroundings. The visual impression should be on nature’s terms, not on the terms of the people erecting the building.”

In brief:

The Swedish word for nature centre, ‘naturum’, is a registered trademark owned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Sweden’s first nature centre was opened in 1973, and there are now more than 40 such centres right across the country.

Photography:Johan Fowelin

Architects:( White )Mattias Lind and Ulla Antonsson

Brockholes Nature Reserve And Visitors Centre | west Yorkshire, England | Studio Shift

Brockholes Nature Reserve And Visitors Centre
Sponsored by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission in the United Kingdom, the competition for a new Visitor’s Center for the Brockholes Nature Reserve near Preston in Lancashire set a series of ambitious goals, among them being the creation of a nature conservation site of regional, national and international importance. The restoration of the project site and adjacent land is part of Britain’s largest land regeneration program ever. The project site is composed of 261 acres of land on which an operating gravel quarry currently sits. The site is surrounded by 163 acres of additional woodlands and is bounded on the south and east by the River Ribble, on the north by the Boilton Woods and on the west by the M6 Motorway. Preston has a somewhat cold and wet climate typical of the northwest UK. Although the chance of occurrence is generally small, the site is prone to flooding. The need to address the flooding issue coupled with the client’s desire to site the building and associated facilities in the general area of the existing quarry facilities led us to select a prominent ridge as the ideal perch for the structure.
Images and text from : Studio Shift

Visitors Centre, Baelo-Claudia Archaeological Site | Tarifa , Cádiz, Spain | Guillermo VAZQUEZ CONSUEGRA

Completion: 2005
Floor area/size: 25923 m2
Cost: € 5658471
Architect:Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra
Client: Consejería de Cultura, Junta de Andalucia
Location:Tarifa,Spain
Photographs:Duccio Malagamba
Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra website