Waterton Environmental Education Pavilion, WEEP
The Waterton Environmental Education Pavilion, located in Waterton Canyon, serves as an outdoor classroom for environmental groups involved in Bird Banding, Pond Ecology and Wildlife Habitat. It was designed and constructed by students from the University of Colorado’s Design Build Program, Colorado Building Workshop. The project is located on a brownfield site in the middle of a nature preserve. The site once housed a five sided well but had long been abandoned. The local Audubon society had been using the area to educated grade school children about bird banding but lacked a permanent structure.
After experiencing the process of bird banding first hand the students expanded the brief to include four main spaces. An open-air center for learning, a waiting area to contemplate, a gathering area to collect data and a cantilevered deck to release the captured birds back to nature. Each space takes advantage of the immediate context to heighten the experience in each “room”.
The “learning space” was built entirely of material cast offs. Extra concrete from each of the four pours was used for the board formed waiting bench and concrete pavers. Excess steel angle and welded wire fabric form an education wall to teach students about the local ecology and bird banding net locations.
The “contemplation space” allow students an area to wait and store their backpacks. It is located directly next to the “gathering space” where students collect data on each bird that has been captured. The canopy structure over these two spaces is a pragmatic response to the various constraints of the local building codes. Because of the remote location the choice of steel became a fire department requirement. The students determined that the roof should drain to a central skylight (fondly referred to as the squoculus) to capture rainwater and filter it through vegetation, soil, and rock before returning it to the floodplain.
The final “release space” celebrates the bird’s return to nature. The small cantilevered deck spans from the remediated brownfield site into the nature preserve. This is the one moment that students are allowed to touch the bird as they lay their hands open for the bird to touch down on before it flies away.
Technical Description
The structure primarily of schedule 40 pipe and light gauge steel framing. The tilted columns were conceived to triangulate the lateral loads associated with a structure that, by floodplain regulations, were not allowed to have walls. Collaborating with a local structural engineering firm the students were able to minimize the diameter and number of columns through finite point analysis software. The placement of each column was further refined by analyzing the flow of groups through the structure in response to the program. Off the backside of the structure a small cantilever celebrates the release of captured birds back to nature. The roof, constructed from light gauge steel framing, and hot rolled steel fascia, drains to a central skylight (fondly referred to as the squoculus) to capture rainwater and filter it through vegetation, soil, and rock before returning it to the floodplain. The soffit is constructed using reclaimed formwork from the board formed foundation and exposed concrete benches.