COYOTE HILLS

Site: Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont, CA

Typology: Cultural & Sustainability

Course: ARH 350: Site Conditions & Building Performace

Instructor: Lise Barriere & Joseph King

Coyote Hills Regional Park has a rich and diverse history spanning centuries. Once a seasonal hunting and settlement site for the native Ohlone tribes, the site more recently was also home to a Nike missile base during the Cold War years before becoming regional park land. The design concept for the visitor center seeks to educate guests about these two historical uses. The Nike missile launch site is located northwest of the visitors center and the native Ohlone village is sited in the marshlands northeast of the center. These two locations serves as bilateral axes which align the building elements. The native "wing" of the visitors center is dug into the ground, evocative of the tribes' use of the site resources and ecology in a substantive nature, while the Nike "wing" lifts off of the ground and hovers above in a gesture of lightness and flight.