The Role of Architectural Design in Promoting the Social Objectives of Zoos

A Study of Zoo Exhibit Design with Reference to Selected Exhibits in Singapore Zoological Gardens

by Michael Graetz

PART 5 CONCLUSIONS

5.1 The Responsibilities and Limitations of the Zoo Designer

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the connections between design of a particular class of things, namely zoo exhibits, and the objectives of Singapore Zoo in particular. If this field of design is architecture, then to establish the need and role of architects in the design process is also inseparable from the present goal.

It is not essential that zoo designers be architects provided one distinguishes pure architectural design from the professional practice. In a sense architecture is open to anyone, as vernacular design shows. The assertion that zoo design is architecture is not essential to the argument that architects need any special knowledge of the field. Architects are usually involved in zoo development for statutory or regulatory reasons. This alone establishes the need for architects to have some understanding of zoo design.

Why not a purely landscape architectural treatment? This author views landscape architecture as a necessary division of architecture but that the two are not mutually exclusive professions. Architecture deals more with physical structure, perhaps, and landscape architecture less so. In reality their professional concerns overlap along a spectrum of environmental design from product design, to interior design, to architecture, landscape architecture, town and regional planning. Regulation sets up the boundaries between the various design professions. If however architects use other designers, it is a part of their professional make up to understand and be involved in these design components. This applies not only to landscape architects but to zoo professionals too.

Zoos will always involve architects in their projects. The question is this: whether the zoo client takes this as an imposition and asks the architect simply to do the least necessary--or the zoo is grateful for the involvement of a designer committed to the project and knowledgeable enough to contribute meaningfully.

This dissertation has made much of the recent historical development of an independent stance in zoo design. Zoo design has always been an expression of mainstream architecture. This stance is almost a non architecture in appearance but this author maintains it is still architectural. For that matter, it is also non landscape architecture. The point should be well taken that designing habitats is historically not a common activity for either architects or landscape architects.

The question inevitably arises: what is the role of an architect in planning and designing a zoo exhibit? Today, zoos place a premium on minimising or eliminating intrusion of obviously built elements in exhibits. Animal needs are on the ascendant, and knowledge of these is the obscure preserve of zoologists who have little time for or understanding of architectural aesthetics. There may be no point of contact across this divide. What then is the need for architects? Hopefully, it is not as mere technicians. The trend of the last twenty or thirty years to habitat simulation in extremis could not have become a reality without the active involvement of architects. The emphasis is on involvement: as Hancocks says, “The architect must recognise himself, and be recognised, as a member of an integral team of specialists if the artificial environment is to be created with success.” [1]

Fig. 113 Staff needs includes veterinarian access

The major difference between such exhibits, first introduced more than ninety years ago by Hagenbeck in Hamburg, and the modern conception is twofold. These are first the accuracy in the portrayal of habitat, and secondly the manipulation of perceptual clues to conform with the educational message--rather than “pure entertainment” [2]. Architects need to understand this newer design philosophy to allow them to contribute effectively.

Fig. 114 Keeper access is a requirement: feeding lemurs on an island enclosure

Considering the diverse functions architects design for, from hotels to hospitals for example, architecture is a remarkably non specialised profession, requiring at least a passing knowledge of many diverse fields. Architects ought to handle zoos as simply another building type with its own special needs and assumptions and set of users. There is nothing novel in the need for architects to empathise with their clients, be they zoos or other institutions. The need to understand an anonymous user body is peculiar to the modern world since the industrial revolution.

Fig. 115 Denning / release operations


Fig. 116 Screened service area with warning sign

Zoos belong to the same category of public institutions as museums, art galleries and botanic gardens. These all have visitors as the common element. Zoos are probably the most different of these institutions in having contradictory impulses. Harrison refers to visitors as just one of four client groups in zoos, together with keepers, animals and the zoo management or governing body--the institutional client. He argues the result must be a compromise mediated by the zoo director. [3] Architects will deal most closely with zoo directors, but should deal with other members of a team of zoo personnel as well. Thus, the architect must listen to many voices. When architects consider all ‘clients’, the animals stand out obviously as the most difficult to come to terms with. While studies of human behaviour suggest that we are complex, architects do at least belong to the same species. When it comes to zoo animals, the species barrier [4] and our extremely scanty knowledge of them means that architects could almost be excused for leaving that aspect to the experts.

Traditionally, the architect took the brief and returned later to present various schemes involving some sort of architectural statement. Whether the design chosen really works for the animals was very often left to chance and the keepers to remedy. This is an abdication of design responsibility. Architects cannot provide the answers on animal questions but they should be concerned about designing suitable habitats for animals.

Animal needs need not, however, be an area totally alien to architects. These needs fall into several categories which provide a basis for designers to at least seek out the important facts of the animals. Much of what architects know about the functions users of their buildings carry out comes from a working knowledge of their clients’ business. This comes from experience, research or patient questioning. The most important source for zoos is obviously the zoo's staff, but literature, audio-visual media, travel and outside specialists are other sources. Harrison gives a comprehensive review of the needs of mammals, including a checklist of the physical requirements. [5] Other information sources exist in less compiled forms [6]. Some needs of animals will conflict with other design requirements. While the director will make the final decision on these conflicts and other issues, the architect has to come up with the physical solutions.

Management is theoretically concerned to meet all needs but un-resolvable conflicts make this practically impossible. In practice, the focus of management differs between zoos, but most public zoos (i.e. that get the bulk of their funds from admissions) will be driven more by the needs of visitors. What do visitors want? Primarily, to get as close as possible to the animals; they do not like passive exhibits and like to interact with animals, and they want to be told about the animals. On the other hand, animals want privacy, from each other and from visitors, and sufficient space modified for their particular needs (i.e., habitat characteristics). This means they may at times retreat as far from the visitor as possible and sometimes be out of view, if allowed. Staff, meaning keepers, maintenance and horticultural staff, want to carry out their work without unnecessary difficulty. This means they see trees with leaf fall to be swept, floors with difficult to clean textures, and glass viewing panels that dirty easily, as two edged swords. Keepers generally favour naturalistic exhibits but are well aware of the negative aspects.

Architects need to realise that design has a part to play in fostering the ideals of zoos (education, recreation, research and conservation), and to believe in them. This is achieved through two things: first, making exhibits that function well, and second, making a total, positive aesthetic experience for visitors. Function means, for example, easy cleaning, safety for keepers, social contact or conflict avoidance among animals, clear and ‘readable’ views of the animals, and adequate interpretation for visitors. This presents a formidable architectural challenge since the function of exhibits is tied up with control of meaning and perception more than physical planning.

To the question: who is best qualified to design zoo exhibits, the answer is that the field is open and necessarily multi-disciplined. The professional journals have a tradition of assigning overall credit to one person or firm while acknowledging the specialist contributions. When the newly reopened Central Park Zoo in New York was featured in Landscape Architecture, the project's landscape architect, Philip Winslow, was the focus of the story; Architectural Record, however featured the architect, Kevin Roche, but several (Bronx) zoo staff are named and likely determined the conditions not only of the animals but directed the habitat simulations [7]. Neither of the main consultants would have been noted particularly for zoo design prior to this, but did the architect only focus on the buildings? Did the landscape architect handle just the matrix surrounding the exhibit? Could the habitat exhibits have been realised without them? Clearly not, or the result would have been a disaster, instead of rescuing the moribund, oldest zoo in America.