The Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center opened this weekend and is now open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 am to 4 pm. This is a special place as it is the first urban National Wildlife Refuge in the Southwest. Not surprisingly, with the pandemic, the opening was delayed several months, but we are very excited to see visitors interacting with the exhibits we developed. If you are in the Albuquerque area you may want to visit the refuge or participate in the many community events planned this fall.

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We created a video preview of the exhibit earlier in the year which shows the new visitor’s center and the exhibits and community spaces.

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We also wrote a series of blog posts about the exhibit design process and some of the highlights of this unique installation. We developed a Digital Docent exhibit which provides users with a variety of content and information about both the refuge and the land around it. In addition, we wrote about our focus on exhibit design with accessibility in mind and how we focused on making the experience accessible to as many visitors as possible.

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We also wrote about the Community Effort that went into the exhibits. This project was unique in that it was developed with significant community involvement. We also posted about an educational workshop we held that focused on the development of a Bosque Education Guide, which helped support our exhibit design efforts.

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Ideum is grateful to the many partners we worked with including Brycon, Formative Architecture, and the Friends of Valle de Oro. We are also thankful to be able to do such meaningful work locally in our community.

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