Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve Interpretive Center

2014 ASLA Honor Award General Design

An Inspiring Teton Experience

Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve Interpretive Center
Grand Teton National Park

Thoughtful repurposing and experience-focused design combine to create a visitor experience that is intuitive, effortless, and uniquely immersive.

  • 2014 ASLA Honor Award General Design

    "The different kinds of access you get to the environment are appreciated. . . The project includes beautiful materials that fit within the landscape. It’s inviting. It gets you close to nature."

    - 2014 Awards Jury

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Located on the footprint of the historic JY Ranch, the family compound for Laurence S. Rockefeller, this project included the development of an interpretive center, circulation planning and design for vehicles, bicycles, and equine access, as well as easily accessible pedestrian traffic on over ten miles of ADA trails.

The vision for the Laurence S. Rockefeller Preserve Interpretive Center also included special interpretive and viewing spaces to encourage visitors to immerse themselves in both the natural and human history of the Teton landscape.

Twenty-five historic structures were relocated to the Granite Ranch, allowing for the unobtrusive Interpretive Center to occupy a space on the edge between the forest and sage meadow. With an eye to both environmental preservation and visitor education, the intuitive boardwalks and paths invite individual journeys of discovery throughout the diversity of habitat surrounding the Interpretive Center.

With details like a perforated metal walkway spanning a free-flowing waterfall, the design encourages visitors to engage and interact with the most unique elements of their surroundings in a safe, sustainable way.

Benches, boardwalks, and thoughtfully designed resting spaces invite visitors to pause and appreciate the sights, smells, and sounds of the natural world around them. Embracing the Western philosophy of stewardship and resourceful reuse, the Interpretive Center also includes a water bottle filling station that gushes forth from a granite boulder and an innovative repurposing of the property’s original bridge.

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