Our task was to replace or alter the existing 20-foot observation tower at the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge’s Morgan Hill Overlook. This plot of land, a man-made prairie, is packed with flora like Goldenrod, Fleabane and various kinds of tall grasses. Wildlife visibility, however, is very minimal. A redesigned tower could provide much better vantage points for naked-eye and binocular viewing and potentially draw the refuge’s more elusive bird residents, like the Red-cockaded woodpecker, out into the prairie. Inspired by the University of Stuttgart’s Wangen Tower, this concept utilizes pre-fab mass timber panels. While I initially considered a subtle twist like the Wangen, I decided to use straight panels to better convey a “tree-like” aesthetic and simplify model-scale and full-scale production.