THE DOGRUN
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Scott Visitor Center
Posted by mattmorris on 7/25/13 at 1:38 pm
In the middle of July Tenna and I made a trip to the 2013 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree. The Summit Bechtel Reserve is the new Jamboree home for the Boy Scouts of America. Previously located at an Army Base near Washington DC, this site in West Virginia is their new and permanent location. Hosting about 40,000 to 45,000 people this is its inaugural year. The purpose of our trip was primarily to visit the site of the Scott Visitor Center - currently under construction - but also to take in and observe the Jamboree in progress. We spent an entire day there as visitors where we had to park in a remote lot, hop on a bus with other visitors and take the ride across the 10,000 acres of the camp to the heart of the property and the central village center. While there we observed the sites and activities for the other buildings we will work on in future years. The photograph above shows the distant camp and Lake Flato designed shower houses.
The partially complete and already well used "dancing porch" at the Scott Visitor Center.
Once complete the porch will have numerous exhibits about the site, scouting and West Virginia. In the mean time the boy scouts have taken it over as a "patch trading" hub. Patch trading is a huge pastime in scouting where scouts set up under trees, along trails and in this case in the shade of our porch to carry out their business. The feel is like a market in Mexico or at the Spanish Governors Palace in Santa Fe where "wheeling and dealing" goes on for traders to add to their collection. Views from the porch are a sweeping panorama into the dense West Virginia forest and to Mithun's Sustainablility Treehouse next door
The Sustainability Treehouse was designed by Mithun with construction executed by BNIM. This building demonstrates sustainability in building construction and the importance it has for our natural world. The Boy Scouts have adopted sustainability and conservation of natural resources as part of their new direction into the next century. In fact the new Sustainable Merit Badge is required for boys on track for the Eagle rank.
The Tree exhibit in the Sustainability Treehouse by the exhibit designer Volume, demonstrates how a tree works as a living organism, the ecosystems it creates for other creatures and the importance of trees to the environment. This photo shows the tree rings and how to read them. Apparently the boy scouts have "Bieber Fever", as they have used the young pop star's birth year as a reference point among the tree rings. 
The fluid meandering boardwalk through the newly created wetlands along the southern side of the village center lake by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Crossing one of the deep chasms of the site from the Village Center to one of the Camps. The walkways follow the catenary cables of the suspension bridge making it feel like a tree canopy tour.
Celebrities Tenna Florian of Lake Flato and Brad Clark of BNIM posing with their photographs on the construction fence. Lake Flato is the design architect while BNIM is the architect of record and executing the project through construction.
Decked out in hiking gear and posing with my rendering of the Scott Visitor Center.
The partially complete and already well used "dancing porch" at the Scott Visitor Center.
Once complete the porch will have numerous exhibits about the site, scouting and West Virginia. In the mean time the boy scouts have taken it over as a "patch trading" hub. Patch trading is a huge pastime in scouting where scouts set up under trees, along trails and in this case in the shade of our porch to carry out their business. The feel is like a market in Mexico or at the Spanish Governors Palace in Santa Fe where "wheeling and dealing" goes on for traders to add to their collection. Views from the porch are a sweeping panorama into the dense West Virginia forest and to Mithun's Sustainablility Treehouse next door
The Sustainability Treehouse was designed by Mithun with construction executed by BNIM. This building demonstrates sustainability in building construction and the importance it has for our natural world. The Boy Scouts have adopted sustainability and conservation of natural resources as part of their new direction into the next century. In fact the new Sustainable Merit Badge is required for boys on track for the Eagle rank.
The Tree exhibit in the Sustainability Treehouse by the exhibit designer Volume, demonstrates how a tree works as a living organism, the ecosystems it creates for other creatures and the importance of trees to the environment. This photo shows the tree rings and how to read them. Apparently the boy scouts have "Bieber Fever", as they have used the young pop star's birth year as a reference point among the tree rings.
The fluid meandering boardwalk through the newly created wetlands along the southern side of the village center lake by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Crossing one of the deep chasms of the site from the Village Center to one of the Camps. The walkways follow the catenary cables of the suspension bridge making it feel like a tree canopy tour.
Celebrities Tenna Florian of Lake Flato and Brad Clark of BNIM posing with their photographs on the construction fence. Lake Flato is the design architect while BNIM is the architect of record and executing the project through construction.
Decked out in hiking gear and posing with my rendering of the Scott Visitor Center.