Visitor Experience & Interpretation
Rethinking the National Park Experience: National Parks Now
100 years after the founding of the National Park Service, the United States exists in a different world paradigm, and the evolution of its people and their geography necessitates a fresh evaluation of American understanding. The American story is always changing, and our landscape changes with it. In this time of resurgent cities, populated parks, and a stretched demographic spectrum, the Park Service has a tremendous opportunity to once again grab hold of the American spirit and curate a collective experience going forward.
To that end, the NPS has embarked on a renewed program of engagement with parks located in or on the periphery of major urban centers. The well-known parks of the previous century will always inspire, but they will only ever exist in the imagination of many people. So many Americans never get the opportunity to see these places, or simply don’t have the means, or don’t realize what is being missed because their value is not learned. Without exposure to the story, without a place to feel the power of our land, too many of us go on with a faint idea of a far away park, consumed only through images.
THE NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM CHALLENGE
There are a variety of sites that fall under the National Parks Service (NPS) umbrella, all of which are not created or perceived equally. Thus, the NPS cannot apply the same approach across the board for how these sites engage their visitors.
When specifically working with National Historic Sites, what is the appropriate strategy for site narrative and user engagement? How does this fold into the larger NPS brand?
THE OPPORTUNITY
To create a set of multidimensional tools for communication and engagement that will generate conditions for these National Historic Sites to introduce The Great American Story told through a cultural landscape to a diverse audience; each of whom will be bringing with them an individualized set of anticipations, expectations, and needs.
We believe that the National Park Service’s urban sites have potential to act as miniatures within a larger panorama of the American Cultural Landscape. The scale of these sites afford a level of intimacy that can be utilized to create individualized engagement with a designed experience that weaves together various materials and narratives.
These narratives will be more than elemental objects in glass cases; they will be brought to life through a network of crafted touchpoints.
FIVE IDEAS FOR 'AMERICA'S BEST IDEA'
VISITOR EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
STEAMTOWN SITE
WHAT MAKES STEAMTOWN GREAT?
OBJECTIVES FOR THE STEAMTOWN EXPERIENCE:
HYPOTHESES:
STRATEGY FOR STEAMTOWN'S VISITOR EXPERIENCE:
NETWORK OF NARRATIVES:
NARRATIVE: 'GROWTH, SRINKAGE, GROWTH'
NARRATIVE: 'LAYERS OF SCRANTON LANDSCAPE'
NARRATIVE: 'SCRANTON BROTHER'S AMERICAN DREAM STORY'
This research and investigation was funded by a partnership between the National Park Service and Van Alen Institute.
PLACES OF INTRIGUE
POINTS OF INTRODUCTION
PROVIDE ESCAPE
ESCAPE,is that moment in mediation when the mind clears - everything drops off and your mind is in a new space. This new space is an open space, a space that does not contain the noise from your day to day conscious thoughts.
Inherently, this is what National Parks are for. Its like when you stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon — your feet are planted on the ground, your sense of gravity is so present you can practically touch it. Beyond your physical being and the edge is a limitless vista. Your eye doesn’t know where to focus as the complexity of what you are viewing is infinite. The mind will never be able to take the entire environment in a single frame, rather your mind gets lost in the field beyond while gravity grounds your body to the earth below.
Our inclination is that there is something powerful to ‘complete immersion’ and becoming ‘absorbed into an experience’. So what does it take to create this condition? What does ‘complete immersion and absorption’ mean? What does it take to ‘silence the mind so it will focus’, or is ‘focus’ really the goal? Rather, thinking back to being on the rim of the Grand Canyon, is it something else? Sublime? Awe? For us, this ‘dropping the conscious off’ is ‘escape’.
So where, how, when within our site can these moments be created? We are inclined to immersion and we are compelled by NPS’s mandate to engage: critical thinking & problem solving, creativity & innovation, communication & collaboration.
But rather than ‘nothingness’ as one would experience in meditation, the mind focuses on the experience at hand.
WAYS OF CREATING ESCAPE VIA THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE
FORGE is actively working with Van Alen, the NPS, and Steamtown.
Much more to come...
This project is funded by a Partnership between the National Park Service and Van Alen Institute.