B08_Attachment_2_Seabird_Theater_Upgrade_Project_Interpretive_prescription_Final_2019.pdf

Interpretive Prescription April 2019

Islands & Ocean Visitor Center Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge | Interpretive Prescription | Final

Note staff removed not relevant pages in the doc

Interpretive Prescription | April 2019U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service | Islands & Ocean Center

Clearly communicate Refuge vision and relevance Visitors often come to the VC, and unfortunately some also leave, mistakingly thinking that the interpretive focus is the Islands and Ocean surrounding Homer, Alaska. There are several reasons for this: the unusual circumstance of having a visitor center sited far from the Refuge lands, the lack of a clear intro exhibit experience, and an over reliance on an intro film that many visitors skip. Many of the recommendations in this documented seek to address this confusion and better define the mission and goals of the Refuge.

Simplify and update technology Several key exhibits in the gallery make use of technology that is outdated or no longer functions. While these exhibits will need to be updated, the design team should pay attention to selecting systems and methods that will be sustainable over the long term, given the limited staff and remote location of the visitor center.

Improve Exhibit Engagement New interactive exhibits and immersive spaces are desired to engage kinesthetic learners and provide for active engagement with the scientific activities of the Refuge.The Refuge is a viable, abundant, and resilient community of marine life which scientists, tribes, and the public are actively engaged to conserve.

The Visitor Center hosts about 60,000 visitors annually, the majority in summer months. The Center is frequently visited by independent travelers as well as those who come on cruise ships and tour packages.

Visitorship from tourists is disproportionately made up of older patrons, however classroom programs draw in children and local school groups. Additionally, a hotel is under construction next to the Visitor Center, which may lead to increased visitorship.

VC Visitorship

Revitalization Goals

The Islands and Ocean Visitor Center offers a window into a remote refuge of over 2,000 islands, rocks, and reefs that outline the Alaskan coast. These islands are a national treasure, set aside to preserve habitat for breeding seabirds and other wildlife and to host scientific research into island biodiversity.

For nearly 15 years, the Islands and Ocean Center has provided an opportunity for visitors to experience the beauty of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and to learn about the Refuge’s history, scientific endeavors, and the seabirds, marine mammals, and other wildlife and plants that call it home. Through exhibit displays, immersive AV experiences, and educational programs, the visitor center has brought hundreds of thousands of visitors a little bit closer to the Refuge and taught them why these islands merit our protection and study.

While many of the exhibits today provide value, the visitor center staff and Refuge managers recognize that they are due for a refresh. Some exhibits no longer function properly or make use of outdated technology. Others no longer align with FWS’s communication goals or the current management mandate, or new or emerging conservation challenges for the Refuge. Finally, having lived with the current exhibit for more than 15 years, staff members and long-serving volunteers have observed many ways in which the exhibit design does not adequately communicate.

They have great ideas for improving visitor engagement.

To this end, FWS engaged West Office to document opportunities for improvement at the Visitor Center and to create a road map for revitalizing the visitor experience.

Overview

Refuge Vision Statement

Project Brief

Project Brief

Visitor Flow

As the team analyzed improvements to the visitor experience, we discussed one much larger change that would have rippling impacts exhibit wide: What if we reversed the flow of visitors through the exhibition? While the team identified a number of advantages for making this change, after careful study and budget analysis we decided that it was not worth the expense and would ultimately not improve the visitor experience.

Summary of arguments for reversing exhibit flow:

1. The One Big Ocean exhibit could be remade into a compelling introductory experience. One Big Ocean, a projected story-telling globe, provides the best opportunity for introductory media interpreting the geography of the Refuge.

2. Reversing the flow would place a greater emphasis on conservation biology.

Summary of arguments against reversing exhibit flow:

1. Making this change effectively requires revising the entire narrative and impacting every exhibit in the main hall. This could take away from funding for other enhancement priorities.

2. This change also requires significant infrastructure cost to build a partition wall in the lobby and replace what is now a broad and inviting entrance with a smaller entry portal.

Create a new intro experience The staff recognize that many visitors never see the Intro Movie, thus they enter the exhibit without the basic knowledge of the Refuge.

Respond to Visitor Needs Several new exhibit areas target specific groups that are not well served by existing offerings. This includes a lounge space where parents and companions can wait and a kids zone for younger learners.

West Office first met with the Visitor Center staff and advisors from October 17th to October 20th, 2018 to conduct a detailed review of the existing exhibits and programs. This review resulted in a Documentation Report summarizing the notes and insights from the meeting and providing early sketches of exhibit enhancements. This report was reviewed via a screenshare call held on December 17th, 2018.

Based on the feedback we received on the Documentation report, we developed a first-draft interpretive prescription document that delineates possible plans of action for revitalizing the visitor center. We presented this draft report in a two day workshop in Homer on February 19th and 20th, 2019. This final submittal addresses the comments and discussion from this meeting.

Process

The following team members were present at our kick-off (KO) and Draft Review (DR) meetings:

Islands and Ocean Visitor Center Marianne Aplin, Visitor Services Manager (KO, DR) Kara Zwickey, Visitor Center Manager (KO, DR) Kendra Bush, Environmental Educator (KO, DR)

Advisors & Guests Kevin Painter, Regional Interpretive Specialist (KO) Steve Delehanty, Refuge Manager (KO, DR) Marc Webber, Deputy Manager (KO) Aaron Christ, Biologist (KO, DR) Betty Siegel, Friends Board Member and Volunteer (KO, DR)

West Office Exhibition Design Steve Wiersema, Principal (KO, DR) Jonah Most, Director of Experience Development (KO, DR)

Participants

Plan of existing exhibit. For reference only; may not accurately reflect dimensions or as-built conditions.

Theater

Dory Corner

One Big Ocean

Tiĝlax̂ Field Camp

Conservation History

Alaska Native People

Seabird Theater

WWII

Trapper’s Cabin

Science in the Refuge

Foyer

Retail

Brochures Desk and

Storage

Exhibit Entry

Kachemak Bay Hallway

South Exit

Main Entrance

Existing Plan

Exhibit Exit

Tide Gauge

The theater is a multi-sensory experience that provides visitors with the closest possible equivalent to visiting the Refuge.

Stepping into the theater, visitors activate three large rear projection screens, which appear as windows to the sky where flocks of birds pass overhead. Additional effects include a light show that is timed to work with the video program and scent diffusers that give off a tangerine aroma characteristic of Auklet breeding colonies.

Using light, smell, and video effects, the show intends to provide an experience of being in the Refuge from sunrise to sunset.

In addition to the immersive AV show, the walls of the theater feature scenic rockwork, birds and marine mammals, which add to the experience of being out on the islands.

Seabird Theater

View of the current theater taken from the entrance.Current Theater Plan

Area Plan

Sculpted rock work and seabirds inside the theater.

Only one of three screens was functioning properly during our visits.

Analysis of Current Theater

The architecture of the visitor center is defined by this theater, and it is clearly intended to be the central element of the visitor experience. In this role, it greatly under performs. If there was funding just to improve one aspect of the visitor center, the team agrees that we should refresh this theater.

Visitor Experience The theater is designed to transport visitors to a Refuge island, privy to the sights, sounds, and even smells of spending dawn to dusk watching seabirds fly by overhead. It’s an interesting concept, however we feel that the theater misses opportunities by hemming to it far too literally. This is most apparent in the video footage, which is footage from a fixed camera angle showing flocks of seabirds passing overhead. Besides being low-resolution, this footage is underwhelming.

Additionally, as the first significant exhibit experience, the theater does not adequately introduce the exhibition. It presumes visitors have already watched the Journey of the Tiĝlax̂ film and does not directly communicate to visitors that the theater represents a scene from a Refuge landscape. Visitors who have not watched the Tiĝlax̂ film often miss this intent.

The subtle scent and slow brightening effects similarly lack interpretation.

Finally the theater is quite dark, both due to the lightshow and as an artifact of low-brightness projection technology at the time the theater was created. Visitors today find it to be an unwelcoming environment. We think that brighter and more consistent lighting would encourage more visitors to enter.

Technology The technology behind this theater has been a constant challenge and staff estimate the theater is fully functional just 10-15% of the time.

Maintenance issues include:

• The lighting system, which includes dimmers, is severely outdated and needs to be updated and replaced so as to be compatible with current technology and high efficiency bulbs.

• Projector bulbs frequently burn out. (The Epson G7400U LCD projectors used for this exhibit should have a 4,000 hour lamp life and provide 1-2 years of business-hour use.) We are unsure why they currently last only six months.

More than half of the theater footprint is taken up by AV equipment.

• The AV controllers for this exhibit are unnecessarily complex.

While the exhibit media runs off a Brightsign player, the signal then passes through a Crestron show controller system that is hard for staff to program and maintain. We do not think this show controller is necessary for the functions of this theater.

• The scent fans are difficult to reach and resupply.

Also notable is the large back-of-house necessary to accommodate the projectors, mirrors, screens, and AV racks that run this exhibit. Replacing this system with a front projection screen would allow for a much larger theater area.

Seabird Theater

1. Remove rockwork and increase the size of video presentation Opening up the rear wall and changing to front projection would dramatically increase the capacity of the theater and make for a much more immersive experience (see sketches on subsequent pages).

2. Remake the video The theater should function as an introduction to the Refuge and an orientation experience, particularly for visitors who have not watched the Journey of the Tiĝlax̂ film. This suggests a linear AV presentation that provides an overview of Refuge geography and biodiversity. This might include orientation map graphics, high definition drone flyover videos arriving at various islands, views looking down at steep cliff drop-offs, and close encounters with seabirds.

Additional Notes:

The name of the Refuge should remain onscreen through the video presentation (so it’s captured in visitor photos) and the video should include scenic audio and short statements but the intention is for it to not be narrated.

3. Simplify technology and special effects Modernizing and simplifying the back-end technology in the theater would reduce maintenance and downtime. This should include eliminating the aroma fans, replacing the lighting controller for a modern system or substituting for stage lighting, and upgrading to a laser projector that is more reliable and has a longer bulb life.

4. Upgrade audio While other AV aspects could be simplified, we find that it would be worth investing in better audio equipment.

Installing surround sound speakers and producing a more dynamic audio soundscape would significantly add to the experience.

5. Add “presenter mode” Visitor Center staff would like to have the capability to toggle the theater between exhibition and presentation modes.

Presentation mode would allow a staff member to play a custom slideshow or video clip for group presentations.

6. (Possibly) add visitor video interactivity The team discussed adding an interactive control to allow visitors to select areas of the Refuge on a digital map that correspond with video footage from island environments, allowing visitors to choose where they would like to “travel” on the Refuge. This would be in addition to an orientation show that would play by default.

7. Possibly add catwalk to access lighting The myriad of current lights and projectors in the ceiling are difficult to maintain - especially during busy summer months. Consider installing a catwalk to access the projectors as part of the retrofit.

Recommended Changes

Theater Enhancements

This rendering re-imagines the theater as an immersive AV experience with the following enhancements: The back wall has been opened to increase the visitor area and make room for a large front-projection screen; benches with under-glow lights provide an enticing and welcoming environment, and ocean-themed gobo lights add texture to the floor. Most or perhaps all of the existing rockwork would be removed from the theater to accommodate these changes.

Seabird Theater Existing rock work is removed and a larger, seamless front projection surface is created on the back wall

Floor projections with gobo lights

Bench seating with glow lights

Intro Show Media

This rendering shows how the theater media could provide an orientation to the Refuge by pairing island footage with map graphics. Includes infrastructure enhancements as noted on first rendering.

Seabird Theater Narrative intro show with map graphics

This rendering shows how an expanded projection area could allow for the presentation of panoramic video and create an immersive experience. Includes infrastructure enhancements as noted on first rendering.

Immersive Media

Immersive widescreen media

Seabird Theater Revision Plan

Revised Seabird Theater plan.

New projection screen on back wall

New storage closets accessible from inside the theater

Two or three projectors mounted from ceiling

Ellipse-shaped bench seating.

Interior rockwork removed p 510 251-9633 www.woed.com

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