Since the plans adoption, Woodland Park built the first ever Gorilla Exhibit on grass and in trees. You never saw the Apes indoors with concrete floors and caging. The gorillas lived in social groups, with Kiki the big male gorilla, being able to climb the stout-er trees in the habitat. This was ground breaking. Subsequently, their African Savanna projects was another far reaching a project joining together ALL the animals of the Savanna in one complex of ecologically correct vegetation and architecture. Animals included your standard (today) Giraffe, zebra and antelope - but also Patas monkeys on an island and Hippos in their waterhole out on the savanna, just how they should be - no concrete walls, no fences, just a joy to behold. There were Aviaries filled with African birds, held up by thin aircraft cable and soft mesh that became invisible and what buildings you saw, were themed to look like what you might find in Africa.

A new set of bars had been set, but they didn't stop there, several years later, J&J again proved that they were something special - with the Asian Elephant Forest exhibit. Using the same playbook that the 1976 plan outlined, they created not only an esthetically beautiful Temple of the Elephants as their holding barn - immediately alerting you to the idea that you have left the western world, and entering into Thailand and the far east, but they also took into consideration the biological and physical needs of the elephants. An extensive trail system with heavy vegetation hiding the light cable fences, and including the visitor into the lives of the Elephants. To make sure all the elephants were enriched, a logging camp was set up were the Elephants would demonstrate Asian Elephant appropriate activities to the guests. The seeds of wellness are sown. Swimming pools, deep enough for the elephants to submerge and given free choice to move anywhere they wanted at their own control and psychological activities that would keep the animals minds alert and strong.

Woodland Park by this time was mostly transformed into a world class destination zoo for zoo visiting public and every potential zoo designer to catch that wave. The design of the newer San Diego Zoo exhibits with J&J leading the way took a cue from WPZ as did Chicago's Zoos and other who were already poised to make dramatic changes to the way they exhibit species. The Bronx Zoo, who jumped quickly to renovate it's crumbling infrastructure - and with the aid of some very talented designers and artists, under the direction of Bill Conway, took the Woodland Park philosophy to heart to renovate their zoo with ground breaking exhibits in zoogeography zones and added on the science driven knowledge to the test with the Snow Leopard exhibit, Jungle World, Ethiopian Highland and more recently Congo and Tiger Mountain all pointed the way to the best-in-the-world status.

So many zoos began to transition to more humane and educational exhibits. At CLR we were already coming up with the version 2.0 Gorilla exhibit for Terry Maple in Atlanta - we devoted a huge portion of the site to Great Apes under a canopy of existing huge oaks to create the largest great ape habitats in the world (i think?!) - certainly at the time - and they were divided into 5 separate areas to create unique social groups to be managed over time. We also did a similar African Savannah concept taken from the playbook, but on a much smaller footprint - the Masai Mara was built and opened in 1989, taking one of the worst zoos in the country to one of the best. Readers of this blog already know how shortcomings of the Elephant habitat at Masai Mara paved the way to create the far more humane Grand New View elephant complex of 2019.

But the next project we did at CLR was Northern Trail for Woodland Park. Jon Coe and Gary Lee were returning to Seattle after leaving J&J to form CLR, this time for the next piece of the Master Plan - the Taiga Forest biome. Not too sexy a name, but when you break it down you get a North American piece that includes, Grizzly Bears, Otters, wolves, Mt. Goats, Eagles and more with an Asian Highlands piece that included Snow Leopard, Ibex, Markhor and Takin in a potential second phase. This project did for Bears what their Gorilla exhibit did for great apes everywhere. The exhibit area was small by todays standards, but views were expansive and consistently Northwestern. This exhibit was more than a renovation of the Bison yard, but it was so immersive and consistent that years later, this exhibit has become a true habitat teaming with animals and plants of the pacific northwest now 38 years later. They have done some reworking of the Tundra building and rebuilding of the wood structures - but essentially these old exhibits are truly a valuable resource to the zoo and to the cities where they live. The picture above is just one that shows the effect that a Long Range Plan can have.

Jon Coe points out that early examples were in place at the Arizona Sonora Desert museum prior to the Woodland Park plan, where new technology is fencing and rock work were being explored and utilized with native species in a glorious location. Conway at the Bronx had already built and opened the World of Birds in 1972 as an indoor environment suited to each species with beautiful murals depicting the ecosystems of the animals exhibit but the people observed them from a safe distance indoors in a museum setting. These isolated concepts helped to support the idea that the landscape and the animals cannot be separated if your goal was education.

I shared this Mt. Goat photo because it is amazing to think that these well designed places, with the complete buy-in by the clients and the love by the community and it's ever changing populations can enjoy, can transform zoos into places of great value. I just love that these exhibits were true to the heart of the issue that Zoos need to be sustainable by being real places that work for the animals, keepers, managers, donors and visitors every day of the year and look good can last through time and bring real change to the zoo world. Congratulations Woodland Park Zoo for showing everyone the way!

There is much to discuss and to learn from the past, but I also struggle with what is appropriate now. With the cost of everything so high, and budgets for exhibits skyrocketing to enormous numbers - $100's of millions for major expansion/renovations are not out of the questions. Just to think that Northern Trail cost $5.6M on bid day and now would be over $30M, easily. But it's not only about cost, it's about how to keep the pressure up to provide better and better facilities to manage greater numbers of endangered species into the future. We owe it to the Animals in our care.

With these musings, you as the reader will come to the question - what's next!? in zoo design? While I've been involved with this industry for 35 years, I have seen the pendulum of change from strict conformance with environmental realism to more functional environments for the exhibits, but mostly its the development of whole zones of the zoo being devoted to creating a place led by the creation of Disney's Animal Kingdom to the master planning efforts of many zoos to attempt to capture the feel of an environment where the animal's life can be lived out in a place that simulates their native environments and places the visitor within that environment. My hope and my direction is to continue creating these places, but to devote more and more room to allow more and more vegetation to develop into a habitat where these animals can raise their own in an environment that is safe and secure for generations. I believe in the LRP and it's objectives to be the basic roadmap and that individual sites and clients can adjust to create wellness inspired environments for all, animals, staff and visitors.


P.S. Looking back tends to bring up nostalgic feelings especially when you factor in the people involved with these earlier days are no longer with us. The loss of the Bronx's Bill Conway and Grant Jones (of J&J) last year and most recently Steve Ross, the director of Lincoln Parks Primate Center and Board Chair that I'd interfaced with for many of the years working at Chimp Haven, expanding to over 400 chimpanzees on 200 acres. These great figures are now gone, but the playbook is still here. I hope the youthful new leadership at zoo are able of see the value of the past and to learn from the great people and places who have changed the Zoo world forever.