Sea Lion Landing

Riverbanks Zoo and Garden (Columbia, SC)

Riverbanks remodeled its “Front Door” with a new arrival plaza and anchor exhibit: Sea Lion Landing. ECOS helped plan the visitor experience, wayfinding, identity, and educational exhibits—from concept and design through fabrication and installation.

Sea Lion Landing features an indoor area crafted by ECOS in cooperation with Pier 39 in San Francisco. Live-feed video from the pier shows sea lions throughout the seasons, with messages about coexistence and natural history. ECOS also worked together with marine debris sculptor Angela Haseltine Pozzi to create a life-size sea turtle riding a wave—all made exclusively from collected trash, and complete with carefully crafted “message-in-a-bottle” interpretives.

A primary goal of the Sea Lion Landing exhibits is to raise awareness of the extent and dangers of plastic debris in our oceans, and about how trash travels down waterways from cities like Columbia, which are well inland from the coast.