Courtesy Portico Group “Processional Walk” through Oltremare, a marine theme park in Riccione, Italy, that Seattle’s Portico is working on.

Our work backlog is strong, yet the public work is slow in contracting. We anticipate we will have the need to hire additional design staff later in the year,” said President Michael Hamm. Typical project types include museums and visitor centers, arboretums and botanical gardens, zoos, aquariums and parks.

Recreation, eco-tourism and urban ecology are becoming increasingly important to Portico, and the project base includes commissions spanning national and international boundaries. Currently there are projects in Great Britain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and mainland China.

Staff size is now 30, down 10 from last year.

Projects:

• Issaquah Hatchery Education Center was designed for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife with the Friends of Issaquah Hatchery.

• Phase IV of Heritage Park at the Olympia state campus connects the historic capitol campus with Puget Sound and Olympia’s city center.

• Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, Calif., is a “living museum” on a 300-acre site spanning the Sacramento River, including site design, building and site program, and stream profile chamber exhibits.

• Wallaroo Station for Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa, Fla., is a children’s zoo inviting families to experience the animals and environments of “Downunder.”

• Wings of Asia aviary exhibit at Miami MetroZoo, the largest open-air aviary for Asian birds in the Western hemisphere, will open soon.

• Regenstein African Journey at Lincoln Park in Chicago is a redesign of the zoo’s large mammal house with immersive habitats.

• Arctic Inter-Agency Visitor Center exhibits in Coldfoot, Alaska, is a new visitor center on the Dalton Highway operated by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

• USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is an expansion of the National Park Service’s memorial.

• Oltremare marine theme park, Riccione, Italy.