2. sky portals
Site location: Newport State Park, Ellison Bay, Wisconsin.
sky portals
Sky portals is designed to enhance the outdoor experience for visitors coming to Newport State Park, Dark Sky Park in Wisconsin. Throughout the design process, encouraging outdoor activities and night sky viewing was essential. The main element for optimal night sky viewing is a bridge that wraps around the trees and snakes across the site. The bridge becomes more than a means of transportation, but also a hub for interaction and activity, with people and nature. The journey on the bridge begins from ground level, venturing off from an existing path on the site, and gradually rises to blend within the trees. Viewing decks, net floors, and seating areas are integrated within the night sky bridge giving the ultimate environment for night sky viewing. Visitors who come to explore the park and do research for an extended period of time have lodging and work space accommodated.
Spaces for sleep, live, and work are designed as individual structures, requiring people to always come in contact with nature as one goes from place to place. The buildings are separated by function, but are considered shared spaces amongst the visitors. The structures are viewports to the sky. Each space includes skylights that are shaped differently based off of the optimal natural light the space receives, not only allowing natural light during the day, but also, opening up to the sky during the night for the stars to spill through. The dark sky park is designed as a net zero building. Some of the characteristics that make it efficient are high-insulated and a tight-building envelope, a water collection system, and Shou Sugi Ban cedar cladding, “burnt cedar board,” which is an ancient Japanese technique of preserving wood by charring it with fire.