Unearthing a State Park

Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, MO

After a devastating flood, our design team re-imagined one of Missouri’s most popular state parks as an award-winning place of outdoor learning, recreation, and play.   

Services

  • Long-range Interpretive Plan

  • Exhibit Design

  • Interpretive Signs

  • Interpretive Mosaics & Sculptures

  • Graphic Design

  • Branding

  • Content Research & Writing

Design Approach

Ninety percent of facilities at the 8,500-acre Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park were destroyed by flooding when a reservoir levy broke and 1.3 billion gallons of water crashed down the mountains and through the park. The engineering and design team was hired to clean up the devastation and then develop a master plan to restore facilities, which included trails and pavilions, an amphitheater and visitor center, a riverfront boardwalk, an outdoor classroom and play area, and picnic areas for large and small groups. 

Signature Design’s task was to interpret the park’s rich geological history and natural habitat, as well as its unique shut-in formations, made where streams have carved through the mountains to create a series of pools amidst huge boulders. Signature Design created an interpretive program that included 10 storylines presented using more than 65 exterior interpretive markers and panels, as well as podcasts, storytelling stations, and 2,500 square feet of interior exhibits. 

Though the flood was tragic in many ways, it did reveal 1.4 billion-year-old bedrock, birthed when volcanoes created the St. Francois Mountains. Our team saw this as an opportunity to use these giant boulders to further tell the story of the park. Exterior interpretive designs featured local cut stone and steel in four trailhead plazas. Two stunning stone mosaic were designed with local materials and reveal nature’s beauty and the earth’s evolutionary timeline. 

The project won a Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2010. 

 
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