Archinect - News

World's longest elevated pedestrian loop at the Minnesota Zoo officially opens

2023-07-31T16:05:00-04:00

The Minnesota Zoo Treetop Trail, the world’s longest elevated pedestrian loop, is officially open to the public. The project, which saw 1.25 miles of a former monorail structure repurposed into a walkway, will take guests 32 feet above the ground and provide new views of and experiences with the zoo’s diverse wildlife, hardwood forest, and wetlands.

The scheme’s design was led by Minneapolis-based Snow Kreilich Architects, alongside engineering firm Buro Happold (known for its work on the High Line in New York City) and landscape architecture and urban design practice TEN x TEN. The construction leader was PCL. Together, the team was committed to minimizing disruptions to the zoo’s animals and guests before, during, and after construction.

“The Treetop Trail marks a new chapter for the Minnesota Zoo,” said John Frawley, the institution's director and foundation president. “As we look ahead to the Zoo’s next 45 years, the Treetop Trail is a major step in furthering connections to nat...

Monorail track converted into elevated treetop trail by Minnesota Zoo and Snow Kreilich Architects

2022-05-04T09:00:00-04:00

The Minnesota Zoo is to begin construction on its Treetop Trail, which will see 1.25 miles of former monorail track repurposed as a pedestrian walkway. Scheduled for completion in summer 2023, the trail will see guests explore hundreds of acres of hardwood forest, wildlife, and wetlands from 32 feet in the air.

Rendering via Minnesota Zoo

The scheme was designed by Minneapolis-based Snow Kreilich Architects, who began feasibility work on the project in 2016, including appraisals of the monorail track’s structural capacity. The architects gave particular attention to five so-called “touch-down” points from which visitors would access the trail.

“These points should hint at what will be explored on the trail and invite visitors to explore nature,” said the architects as well as serving as amenity stations with clear paths to dining, programs, and exhibits.

Rendering via Minnesota Zoo

The design of the scheme was inspired by the New York City High Line, which saw a comparable 1.45-mile...

Historic lion house at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo shines in new light

2021-11-19T14:10:00-05:00

Goettsch Partners has announced the completion of the Pepper Family Wildlife Center, a $41 million renovation, restoration, and expansion of the historic lion house at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

Image: © Tom Harris

The new 54,000-square-foot facility nearly doubles the size of the previous lion habitat, providing increased transparency and a more immersive experience for visitors. Designed in collaboration with Seattle-based zoo exhibit specialists PJA, the habitat focuses on providing choices for the animals and enhancing wellbeing, from thermal comfort zones for heating and cooling to intricate rockwork and trees for climbing.

Image: © Tom Harris

The original lion house was designed by architect Dwight Perkins and completed in 1912. In 2005, it was designated a Chicago Landmark, celebrated for its decorative brickwork and terra-cotta ornament, lion mosaics, and grand hall with its vaulted Guastavino tile ceiling. The design team worked closely with the Commission on Chicago Landm...

Modernist penguin pool is beyond repair, says architect's daughter

2019-01-08T19:10:00-05:00

Zoo workers withdrew the birds from Berthold Lubetkin’s 1934 Penguin Pool after it was claimed the concrete was causing them a bacterial infection known as “bumblefoot”. His daughter Sasha said it was “terribly sad” to see her father’s design sitting unused in the zoo. “Perhaps it’s time to blow it to smithereens.”

As a truly rare example of architecture at a non-human scale, Berthold Lubetkin’s 1934 Penguin Pool at London Zoo is a Modernist classic. But it has been disused for several years, given the fact that its concrete ramps were giving the penguins a bacterial infection known as “bumblefoot.”

Since the penguins have moved to a larger and more accommodating enclosure, the original penguin pool has been quietly crumbling in an abandoned section of the zoo.

Should the original Penguin Pool be restored for historical value, or should it exist only as images of an impossible penguin utopia?

The risky business of city aquariums

2018-06-06T15:05:00-04:00

To some boosters, your city is only one world-class visitor attraction away from economic prosperity. That pitch has been used to sell and endless series of public subsidies for baseball parks, football stadiums, basketball and hockey arenas, convention centers (and their appurtenant “headquarters hotels”) and starchitect-designed museum buildings. To that long list, we might add aquariums.

Joe Cortright CityCommentary piece on the promise and perils of city aquariums.

3XN + Gerner Gerner Plus propose undulating aquarium at Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo

2018-04-25T15:04:00-04:00

3XN and Austrian firm GERNER GERNER PLUS unveiled a new aquarium scheme titled “Poseidon's Realm”, which won second place in an international competition of the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna (A winner is yet to be announced). Working with aquarium specialists ATT, the team designed the aquarium with an undulating silhouette so that it appears like “a great, mysterious veil” across the zoo's landscape.

Image © 3XN.

Covering 6,000 m2 (65,000 sq.ft), the building is divided into four levels and topped with a green roof that is embedded within the zoo's path network — plus, the roof houses a bearded vulture aviary.

The aquarium features a glazed, wave-shaped welcome entrance that leads visitors into a “waterworld” tour. Changing temperatures, ambient sounds, lighting, and ceiling heights add to the experience. The main path widens into smaller bays that lead to individual tanks, creating a more intimate experience between visitors and aquatic life. At the end of the tour is a gi...

Foster + Partners to transform the Snowdon Aviary at the London Zoo

2017-09-13T17:52:00-04:00

The Grade II* listed structure designed by Cedric Price with Frank Newby and Lord Snowdon in 1962, was, and still is a sensational statement. It was the first aviary in Britain that gave visitors a ‘walk-through’ experience, bringing them closer to the birds in their natural habitat. The new design adapts the heritage structure to suit its new inhabitants – a troop of colobus monkeys and parrots – and offers visitors an enhanced experience.

Snowdon Aviary. Image: Foster + Partners

Foster + Partners will transform the aviary at the London Zoo, built in 1964 and designed by Cedric Price, Frank Newby and Antony Armstrong-Jones.

Norman Foster says “The rebirth of the Snowdon Aviary continues our work with historical structures. It is about the fusion of the old and new, but also about repurposing this extraordinary structure. The brand-new walk-though home will allow it to extend its role for decades to come. It will ensure the preservation of an iconic structure and honour its distinguished authors from the past, while preserving a unique built example of Cedric Price’s work.”

The original Snowdon Aviary from 1964. Image via Wikipedia.

Noah's Ark replica opens in Kentucky biblical theme park to “compete with the Disneys and the Universals”

2016-07-12T15:09:00-04:00

The park’s centerpiece features three decks of exhibits explaining Answers in Genesis’ views of the biblical flood account..[It] also features a two-story restaurant, aerial zipline cables and the Ararat Ridge Zoo... “...in a world that we see becoming very secularized before our eyes, it’s really time for Christians to do something of this size, of this quality, that competes with the Disneys and the Universals to get a message to the world.”

This might be worth a pitstop for anyone planning a U.S. summer road trip. Envisioned by the Creationist apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis, a replica of Noah's Ark — measuring 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high — opened last week as the centerpiece of the Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky. As it goes, the theme park [which apparently has a total construction cost of more than $150 million] is “more than just entertainment” and aims to promote the ministry's views on evolution. As it goes, criticism ensues.

Weekly News Round-Up for August 4, 2014: Musk, Martha and monuments

2014-08-11T15:53:00-04:00

Friday, August 8:

Guggenheim Bullies Journalist: Molly Crabapple reports for Vice on inhumane immigrant labor conditions on Saadiyat island in the UAE, where a new arm of the Guggenheim (and Louvre, and NYU) is being built. The Guggenheim holds its cards close and skirts responsibility when Crabapple pushes for answers.
Controversial new app will keep you away from "sketchy" areas: "SketchFactor" rates an area's "sketchiness" based on crowd-sourced local data. Critics are worried that the app will amplify racial profiling and encourage stereotyping.

Thursday, August 7:

Gentrification and the Persistence of Poor Minority Neighborhoods: Harvard sociologists identify another determinant in the gentrification debate: racial composition. Their report, focusing on Chicago, found that a neighborhood's economic redevelopment depended on certain thresholds of black and white residents.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu called for the suspension of the Israeli Architects’ Association from an intern...

More details on BIG's cage-free “Zootopia” redesign

2014-08-06T02:01:00-04:00

In a commission for the iconic Givskud Zoo in Denmark, BIG's current proposal "Zootopia" includes an open, cage-free zoo landscape for the animals to roam in that is divided into three zones titled "Asia", "Africa", and "America". Human visitors can then observe and ogle at the animals in integrated structures or at elevated viewpoints, and ideally out of the animals' plain sight.

Despite BIG's optimistic approach in the redesign, a manmade zoo can't fully replace the animals' true natural habitats — no matter how spacious or meticulously replicated.

Check out the current proposal below:

Project statement: "Architects’ greatest and most important task is to design man-made ecosystems - to ensure that our cities and buildings suit the way we want to live. We must make sure that our cities offer a generous framework for different people - from different backgrounds, economy, gender, culture, education and age – so they can live together in harmony while taking into account individual ne...

Denmark's cage-free zoo will put humans in captivity

2014-08-05T13:08:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels’s ‘zootopia’ reverses the role of captor and captive to let animals roam free, while humans are hidden from view. But will it become a feral version of the Hunger Games?

Winners of Emmen Theater and Zoo Design Competition Announced

2012-04-19T16:03:00-04:00

The collaborative proposal of Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects with Dutch architects Van den Berg Groep has won first prize in an international competition for a 16,000 m2 theater building that will also comprise the entrance to the zoological park in Emmen, the Netherlands.

Beckmann N’Thépé and TN Plus to Design New Saint Petersburg Zoological Park

2011-04-18T16:41:45-04:00

Bruno Tanant and Jean Christophe Nani of landscape design firm TN PLUS together with Aldric Beckmann and Françoise N’Thépé of architects Beckmann N’Thépé have won the international competition for the new Primorskiy Zoological Park in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The same team already won the Helsinki Zoo Project in 2008, after winning in 2006 the zoo in Vincennes, France.