Learning Places

Learning places bring people together, with each other and the world around them, strengthening the bonds to nature and community.  Authored and owned by the communities’ whose stories they tell, they honor local learning.  They move people to work together, learn together, and develop an ever-evolving understanding of the interdependence of communities with the natural world.      

Practice Areas

Education centers 

Catalina Island Museum

Avalon, California
Catalina Island Museum

The Catalina Island Museum has served as the cultural cornerstone of the Avalon community for more than a half-century. With a burgeoning collection, it has outgrown its original space in the iconic Avalon Casino Building.  more

Cedar River Watershed Education Center

Cedar Falls, Washington
Seattle Public Utilities, Watershed Management Division

Located at the edge of the pristine, 90,000-acre Cedar River Watershed preserve, this unique complex is dedicated to educating greater Seattle residents about the principal sourceof their drinking water—the Cedar River. more

Center for Urban Horticulture

Seattle, Washington

Center for Urban Horticulture

Jones & Jones produced the initial master plan for this center— the first academic program in the United States devoted to research on plants in urban environments.  more

Hanford Reach Interpretive Center

Richland, Washington
Various Federal State and Local Governments
in Partnership with Community Organizations

Located at the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia Rivers,the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center will be a gateway tothe grandeur of the Columbia Basin and the Hanford Reach National Monument.  more

Icicle Creek Music Center

North Cascades, Washington

Harriet Bullitt

The Icicle Creek Music Center, located adjacent to Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat and Conference Center, offers a state-of-the-art facility for music students and instructors.  more

Jack Hunter O'Dell Education and Reflection Center

Kent, Washington
Institute for Community Leadership

The Jack Hunter O’Dell Education and Reflection Center is a catalyst for community connection—a place for life-long learning, solving community problems, nonviolence training, stewardship, and positive change in public education.  more

McCartney Creek Conservation Center, Program and Site Concept Plan

Moses Coulee Conservation Area, North Central Washington
The Nature Conservancy of Washington

Jones & Jones collaborated with The Nature Conservancy and their regional partners to develop a site concept plan and program for a new conservation center in the McCartney Creek Preserve. more

Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center

Bellevue, Washington
City of Bellevue Parks and Recreation and
The Pacific Science Center

The Environmental Education Center is the gateway to theMercer Slough—a 320-acre wetland park at the heart of theCity of Bellevue.  Mercer Slough video and more

Monterey Hotel—Chief Seattle Club

Seattle, Washington
The Seneca Group

The Chief Seattle Club—a spiritual gathering place and provider of crucial services for indigent and homeless American Indians—has a beautiful new home in the renovated Monterey Hotel.  more

Read the project case study on buildinggreen.com

Noyo Center for Science and Education

Fort Bragg, California
With Bauer & Wiley Architects
City of Fort Bragg

The Noyo Center will be a first-rate marine research, learning, and interpretive complex at the Fort Bragg headlands. The facility —comprised of a Marine Research and Community Learning Center—will advance marine and coastal research, public education, and spearhead the restoration of Native coastal prairie on a degraded industrial site. more

Pullman Arts Pavillion

Pullman, Washington
City of Pullman Public Works, Washington State University Music Department

Sited in a hollow of the rolling hills of the Palouse, thePullman Arts Pavilion will provide a venue for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, theater, acoustic and amplified performance. more

Southeast Alaska Visitors Information Center

Ketchikan, Alaska
USDA Forest Service

Located near the mouth of Ketchikan Creek on the site of an ancient Tlingit fishing village, the Southeast Alaska Visitor Information Center is one of four Forest Service-sponsored centers in Alaska focusing on local and regional heritage.  more