The Se7en Wetlands Welcome & Education Center designed is inspired by the man-made inventions used to control water flow throughout the site and embedded in the reclaimed landscape. The series of concrete control structures passively tells the story of water treatment and the movement of water. This aesthetic transfer of materiality & craft inspired the building parti.
Se7en Wetlands Park is part of a 1,640-acre area located just south of Lakeland, Florida. Its trails are accessible from existing County parks, creating an 8.6-mile, well-connected trail system for running, walking, hiking, exploring, and viewing wildlife via a 600-foot boardwalk. The park is made up of seven different wetlands on the site- some are covered in marshes and swamps while others are adorned with trees and filtering scrub around seasonally wet lakes. The wetlands are home to many species of birds, as well as alligators, otters, turtles, deer, snakes, wild hogs, and more. The City of Lakeland hopes to teach the public the importance of water reclamation and native Florida wildlife. The “seven wetlands” are man-made and were originally created as sediment basins required for the process of mining phosphate.
The seven cells have a system of berms at their perimeter. From the high point to the low point, there is approximately 70 feet of fall across the site. The City purchased the land in the mid-1980s to pump its treated wastewater so water could be further treated. The Welcome and Education Center design has focused on providing an immersive, inclusive, and barrier-free design that is fully integrated into its surroundings. The building location utilizes the existing berm as the median traverse point to access the two-story structure, utilizing ramps (as there is no elevator), which creates a unique experience for each visitor--descending to the wetland floor or up into the tree canopy, providing for shared physical, psychological, and emotional experiences only to be found in the natural landscape.
