Paradise Inn: A Preservation and Design Study, Mount Rainier National Park, National Park Service

The paradise Inn at Mt. Rainier was built in 1917 by the Rainier National Park Company. The original structure, built in the “Cascadian” style from local Alaskan cedar, is the centerpiece of a collection of park service buildings on the site which are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Listing on the National Register for Historic Places is an important consideration in developing strategies for managing and maintaining the integrity of historic sites. Federal law and NRS internal policies provide definite guidelines for development around or within structures included in the Register. These regulations ensure that the character and significance of buildings of this quality are considered whenever an action is contemplated that could impact these resources. It is within this context that the combined skills of students of Architecture and Landscape Architecture were engaged to analyze the site, interpret the data and to redesign the entire site. The students enjoyed the full cooperation of the staffs of Mount Rainier National Park and the Pacific Northwest Regional Office of the National Park Service. The Paradise Inn site faces a dilemma common throughout the National Park system; preserving the resources while accommodating its use by the general public, increased use that often threatens the very qualities we seek to preserve as part of our national heritage. Much of the effort of the studio was concentrated on achieving the critical balance between maximum use and accessibility for the public and minimum impact on the site while maintaining the historic integrity of the Inn and its surroundings. The studio also felt the purpose of making the visitor to the park aware of the crucial consequences of human intrusion on the fragile sub-alpine zone. The studio was organized into seven groups, small teams of architecture and landscape architecture students; each team analyzing the problem from the perspectives of both disciplines. During the ten week study period the seven groups synthesized the material gleaned from a single site visit, research and Park Service input. The work began with a visit to Mt. Rainier National park and the Paradise Inn site. The two-day trip involved investigations of access, overall site conditions, plant communities, microclimate, building structure and spatial organization as well as discussions with the Superintendent, Neal Guse, Park Maintenance Chief Walt Mazna, Park Botanist Gina Rochefort, regional historical preservation architect Laruin Huffman and regional landscape architect Cathy Gilbert. In compiling the site analysis data, we divided into small teams to avoid duplication effort. Once the data from the site had been collected and analyzed, each team began preliminary design work. Each team was instructed to initially develop several alternate scenarios, each to be presented to the class and evaluated. Through this process the teams derived a design scenario that best satisfied their criteria as well as that of the Park Service. Having refined these alternatives we presented our most viable schemes at a mid-term review. Once again we were fortunate to have varied input in the critique of our design proposals. Participating in the mid-term review were Walt Mazna, Gina Rochefort from Mt Rainier National Park, Earl Moursund, Mike Shellenbarger, and Don Corner of the Department of Architecture and David Hulse, David Vala and Lora Shiltgen from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Laurin Huffman and Cathy Gilbert from the Pacific Northwest Regional Office. Each team presented their best design alternative as well as some of the options they had explored throughout the first part of the term.

Paradise Inn: A Preservation and Design Study, Mount Rainier National Park, National Park Service

Series