Revitalizing a Refuge

Don Edwards Environmental Education Center

Alviso, CA

New Prospect for the Nation’s First Urban Wildlife Refuge

With a new sea-level rise adaptation levee altering visitors’ view of the Bay and current facilities aging, this design presents a new multi-use building and acres of interpretive landscapes to support U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s approach and ambitions for environmental education.

Inspiring Stewardship Through Education

To enhance the visitor experience, the project weaves together existing and newly designed Bay Trail segments, a new outdoor amphitheater and educational gardens that promote ecological understanding. Flexible classrooms with modern technologies expand programming opportunities for diverse events. An observation deck provides elevated vantage points for discovery.

Design for Collaborative Stewardship

Engagement centered Alviso residents and advocates to ensure the site continues to serve as a vital community hub rooted in Indigenous priorities. The vision embraces co-stewardship of the land with the Tamien people, who recognize this site as their ancestral home, and incorporates spaces for gathering and rituals, signage in the Tamien language and access to fishing areas and tule marshes.