The Portico Group
Management: Michael Hamm, president
Specialty: Botanical gardens, parks, zoos, aquariums, museums, places of significance
Year founded: 1984
Current projects: Calgary Zoo Arctic Shores Exhibit; Dragonfly Pavilion, West Seattle; Honolulu Zoo Animal Encounter Area and new zoo entry; Kenai Fjords National Park Headquarters and Visitor Center, Seward, Alaska; Los Angeles Zoo China Golden Monkey and Pachyderm Forest exhibits; New York Aquarium Shark Exhibit; Nevada State Museum Exhibits, Las Vegas; USS Arizona Visitors Center and Museum
The Portico Group, of Seattle, has witnessed a rise in work, and representatives of the company expect to get busier.
Photograph by David Wakely The Portico Group’s design of the Pond Room at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers included a suspended water lily sculpture.
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Mayes thinks the 26-member firm, which does architectural work and exhibit design in addition to landscape architecture, will hire more employees, though he said the decision hinges on whether clients proceed with projects.
Mayes
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“We do the complete range of the physical design, from the big-picture site planning all the way down to the doorknobs,” Mayes said.
The firm has seen an uptick in new zoo projects and visitor centers. In the latter category, The Portico Group is working on the USS Arizona Visitors Center and Museum, where guests board boats that take them to the memorial.
In Utah, the firm designed the exhibits for the Vernal Field House of Natural History, a new dinosaur museum that’s to open in June.
In New York, the company is doing the landscape architecture and interpretive design for the Buffalo Conservatory Palm Dome. It’s “a lot like the work we did for the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers that was completed last September,” Mayes said.
“Creating living exhibits with wonderful plants is always exciting and satisfying.”