The great danger in applying architecture to social objectives, as has been pointed out, is that the underlying assumptions may be flawed and people simply do not behave as they are supposed. The contradiction in design is that human behaviour cannot be determined, or caused, through design; but the design of environments certainly influences behaviour. The mistakes of the past have been in assuming too much knowledge or understanding of human actions. When social scientists have set out to study behaviour and behaviour settings objectively, they have informed past errors and provided real clues as to how environments ought to be designed. These slowly disseminate through the design professions.
Managers of zoos are well aware of visitors not behaving as they should. From abusive behaviour towards animals, to littering, to wearing short-cut paths in turf (desire paths), to failing to disperse and congesting localised areas of attraction. Most zoos are grateful for exhibits and planning that minimise these problems but would also like to encourage learning and observation, to hold visitors longer at exhibits, even to have them go away with some modified views about conservation and other environmental themes the zoo might address.
Thus zoos would like to incorporate a little determinism in their exhibits if they could. Their primary concern in view of the problems just mentioned is to harmonise the needs of animals, keepers and visitors so that the latter enjoy the experience of a simple (usually family) outing at the zoo with the least hassle. The educational role is more modest in the sense that visitors cannot be made to learn but of their own volition. The quality of that learning is also suspect, but if for simple recreational reasons, visitors are encouraged to return often, the limited messages they take in are reinforced and improved upon.
The role of design in this can begin to be sketched out. Fundamentally, the designer must look at proposals from the visitors point of view; that has been the point of conducting visitor surveys. Visitors come to the zoo with certain expectations. Primarily, they expect comprehensible routes through the zoo and spaces along the way, which they can navigate easily, and an interface to the ‘enclosures’ where the animals are ‘kept’.
Therefore the first point is that it greatly helps the zoo to have a readable, non-confusing circulation system. It need not (and should not) be as bland as this sounds. Some complexity can be more interesting; but visitors should have choices without always being forced to make decisions about where to go with too little information. Designers should thus think about junctions in terms of the way visitors will see them. Are there clues as to where different paths lead? Apart from the essential directional signs, visual clues may for example suggest an exhibit beckons down one path and refreshments along another.
Wineman and Yoon [1], in an analysis of the old and new plans of Zoo Atlanta, note that the new plan enables visitors to construct their own viewing itineraries. Using the concept of “integration”, or degree of proximity of spaces (measured in numbers of intervening spaces), they establish a shift in the focus of high integration from the entrance and old central promenade to the exhibit viewing areas. Integrated areas are where people will tend to concentrate. In other words, the old nineteenth century idea of a zoo or park as a venue for social interactions on a grand scale is replaced by small, complexly but closely connected, intimate spaces where contemplation of the animals with immediate companions takes place.
That study was based on a plan analysis alone which the authors admit has limitations, as spatially, zoos are much more complex volumes. Reference has been made to the possibilities in changes of grade: both in controlling sightlines and views of unwanted extraneous elements; and in the symbolism and psychological effects of being placed above or below animals. An analogy can be drawn too, between visitor flow and fluid dynamics: paths influence how visitors move along them through variations in width, course, and hiatus points which encourage the visitor to pause at exhibit views. Paths may just as easily encourage swift passage.
A second principle is that of making the experience memorable. Routes through the zoo help in this also. In older zoos, nearly every exhibit was either a panorama or a diorama. Both these forms have a role today, but a great deal more can be done to overcome exhibit fatigue and boost interest in minor exhibits through circulation patterns. The idea of complexity and variation in routes has been mentioned. Clever use of this and changes in exhibit type, view type and punctuation with comfort stops and other activities overcomes monotony and, more positively, creates surprises and anticipation.
One reason not to be prescriptive about design is that novel display solutions are a necessity. Except in the case of exhibits becoming dated from the point of view of our knowledge of animals, there would be little point in renewal if new display concepts were not tried. Close-up views, animals unexpectedly coming into view, stimulation of interesting behaviours in the animals, landscapes with interest, appealing solutions such as walk-through exhibits, underwater perspectives, interactive devices, giving an animal's eye view, attractive graphics: this by-no-means inclusive list comprises ideas and techniques calculated to make an impression on jaded visitors. These get the attention of visitor in the hope that they will be interested enough to question the exhibit and turn to the, hopefully, equally interesting graphics to provide answers.
A third principle is keeping the message correct. Zoos are held up as responsible institutions staffed by experts in zoology and the life sciences and with animals displayed and kept in the best possible circumstances. Visitors will therefore take everything they are told on trust, including subliminal messages or impressions they get from displays. Since how much of explicit messages they internalise and how much it modifies their behaviour outside the zoo is the area of visitor behaviour studies about which the least is known, it is ironic that there should any be concern about wrong messages which may be transmitted unwittingly by the zoo. Poole’s concern over artificial habitats, which simulate little of use to the animals, has been referred to [2]. Visitors will rightly assume that the animals are well provided for.
In connection with this view and similar ones expressed by Hatley[3], there is something of a conflict between the American and European schools of zoo design. The United States has a thriving exhibit construction industry offering turnkey services and the Europeans fear that the message and purpose may be lost in the rush to create ever more realistic illusions and total sensory immersion for visitors. If visitors come away believing they have experienced the real thing, they may not gain the incentive to help save the threatened real habitat or species in the wild; they may just feel good. The counter argument as expressed by Schibley [4], for example, is that these techniques are used to convey the right messages. Meckley compares two display types, one sterile and unnatural and the other a “replication of an environmental biome”. She asks rhetorically, “what messages are you communicating with these very different techniques?” [5] Another member of the exhibitry industry, David Manwarren states:
One European who supports limited use of immersion exhibitry is Lars Anderson [7], but its extended use palls, he says, leading to exhibit fatigue. The emphasis of his paper is again, getting the message right. Enclosure design must support the interpretive theme. Clearly, different people involved in zoo design speak with different voices and there is much room for different readings of similar principles.