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Woodward Conference Center

Responsive to our nation’s increasing need to cultivate renewable sources of energy generation, Woodward has positioned itself as a pivotal community in Oklahoma’s wind industry development. Woodward is also a central hub for surrounding communities in Northwest Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, but severely lacked meeting spaces for the growing energy sector. The voters of Woodward established a Tourism and Convention Bureau to diversify the local economy and to showcase the local wind energy progress. Woodward resolved to build a conference center to meet these requirements.

The Woodward Conference Center occupies a site in the southwest quadrant of the City of Woodward. It consists of 30 acres of virgin pasture land with a gentle slope to the North and East. The building is designed to take advantage of a wonderful view of the FDA’s Experiment Lake and Canadian Valley River Basin located just to the South of the site. The building takes advantage of the terrain by sitting high on the hill, providing fantastic views of the wind farms, Experiment Lake and the City of Woodward.

Woodward has long been known for energy production, with ventures in oil, gas, and recently wind. The desire was to create a building that represented the movement towards the future of wind energy. Long sweeping angular roofs recreate the dynamic blades of slowly spinning windmills over the plains of Oklahoma. Sawtooth classrooms stagger down the hill, and long horizontal steel tubes embedded within the glass symbolize the wind blowing across the site.