In the western foothills of the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, Hickory Run State Park offers 16,000 acres for visitors to explore. The park includes streams, wooded hiking trails, CCC structures, and the largest flat field of boulders in the Appalachians.

Client: Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources

Role: Interactive design, graphic design, and exhibit design support as an employee of the 106 Group

Primary Goal: The park built a new visitor center and wanted a new exhibit at scale of the beloved park. The wanted visitors to leave with a sense of awe and wonder, poised to explore the rest of the park.

Through early design workshops, we built a concept design focused on the big idea “Nature did this.” Exhibit planning built out experiences for visitors to embrace the enormity of nature. Visitors enter the exhibit space seeing nature first-hand, without interpretation. As visitors flow behind gigantic rocks and trees they reveal painting, sculpture, graphic panels, and interactive media. Visitors continue to dive deeper, leaning in, and finding hidden gems not visible at first glance. For instance, visitors can hear the heart-wrenching tale of Joanna Gould and the flood of 1849. Armed with immense stories of nature and history, visitors leave ready to explore the park’s many locations.

Interior Exhibit Category First Place Award