Modern welcome center building at dusk with a slanted wooden roof, glass facade, and warm interior lights, surrounded by snow-covered ground, bare trees, and illuminated wooden benches.

Home Ranch

Jackson, Wyoming

Service

Architecture

Type

Public + Cultural

Location

Jackson, Wyoming

Photography

Matthew Millman
Paul Warchol

Demarcating the northern entrance to Jackson, Wyoming’s historic downtown, the Home Ranch Welcome Center serves as a community hub for both residents and visitors. The program includes visitor orientation space, a transportation hub and a public restroom facility that replaced a well-used bathroom building. The Welcome Center exhibits inform visitors about the opportunities and amenities in the Town of Jackson and surrounding National Parks.

A contemporary building with a wide, flat wooden roof and an exterior facade of horizontal wood slats and large glass windows. The warmly lit interior contrasts with the cool light of dusk, as people walk on the sidewalk in front, with a street, older buildings, and a distant mountain under a cloudy sky in the background.

The building is situated on a prominent corner on the main route in and out of Jackson and serves as a gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks and adjacent public lands. Since the site includes an existing parking lot that serves as the primary public parking area for the Town, the design had to accommodate the new program and address the public corner without removing any parking spots and preserving the existing 60-foot spruce trees. Access to public transportation was also considered throughout the siting and design of the building so that bus stops are visible and accessible on this busy street corner.

The architect envisioned the building as a new public “porch” for the Town. The porch is a familiar, regional building element that communicates, “welcome,” signifies entry, provides shelter, and acts as a portal. The building program components are expressed individually, the restroom facilities are housed in an opaque concrete enclosure, while the visitor orientation program occupies a transparent, light-filled gallery on the public corner. Both convene beneath the expansive, sheltering porch roof.

Modern museum or visitor center interior with large windows and horizontal blinds, showcasing a rustic wooden pillar and polished concrete floor. Light wooden benches are inscribed with text about early-day Jackson Hole, alongside transparent digital display panels and an information stand with historical photos. Sunlight streams in, casting shadows, and reflecting a red building with an Anvil Hotel sign in the windows.

Modern building entrance featuring a slatted wood ceiling, large log columns, and horizontal metal sun shades. A man carries a child on his shoulders as a woman enters the glass doors of the Welcome Center.

The architect collaborated with a local artist to create Jackson’s first publicly funded art project called “Strands.” The glass bricks, representing bison and bear DNA, are integrated into the building’s solar shade screens.

Modern wood and glass building brightly lit at night in a snowy mountain town. Red and white light trails from cars streak across the street in the foreground, with snow-covered mountains silhouetted against a deep blue sky.

Project Leads

Kevin Burke AIA, LEED AP

Partner

Eric Logan FAIA

Partner

Bryan James AIA, LEED AP

Principal