Client: County of Orange

Location: Laguna Coast Wilderness Park Laguna Beach, California

Awards:

2009

• American Concrete Institute Award

2008

• AIA California Council, Award of Merit

• AIA San Diego, Honor Award

• AIA Orange County, Award of Excellence

The Nature Center is the gateway for recreational users to explore a vast network of linked trails throughout the 20,000-acre South Coast Regional Wilderness. The County worked closely with RNT and project stakeholders to develop a design that utilizes passive energy savings features and would create a unique destination within the park. The nonprofit Nature Center is one of the first public structures in Southern California to use rammed earth to passively heat and cool the interior of the building. The design goals were to provide a portal to nature that educates visitors, and to restore a site that had been altered by fire and previous uses. It is designed to tell the story of the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park – a sensitive, natural open-space preserve that is located between the rapidly growing communities of Irvine and the City of Laguna Beach.