Better Place Forests, Point Arena, California Visitors Centre, USA Architecture, Images
Better Place Forests in Point Arena
Dec 18, 2020
Better Place Forests
Architects: OpenScope Studio
Location: Point Arena, California, USA

Located on the crest of a wooded rise, framing a view towards the meadow below, the visitor center for Better Place Forests in Point Arena, California marks the threshold of the visitors? journey into the forest?s memorial groves.

Better Places Forests offers a sustainable alternative to cemeteries. Within these protected forests, families choose trees to mark the place where they?ll spread their loved ones? ashes over generations. The concept has simple poetry?merging ritual, memorial, and forest conservation?yet its realization involved a large team of design and technical specialists, led by Fletcher Studio, landscape architects. Located on a 40-acre stretch of the Mendocino Coast, Better Place Forests? Point Arena location establishes a framework for future sites, each with its own unique qualities.
The design of the experience centers to a greater extent around the surrounding land than its constructed elements. The site and architecture gently frame a sequence of events?arrival, orientation, memory, threshold, and release. An entry road descends into the site and arrives at the visitor center. Sited at the crest of a hill, this singular building is a place of orientation on the threshold between public and private.

The visitor center?the onl...