CLIENT: COUNTY OF Orange

3,600 SF

Roesling Nakamura Terada Architects, Inc. (RNT) was selected by the County of Orange to design a 3,600 SF Nature Center located at the entrance to Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. 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.