@FunkyGibbon I don't think any visitors were being put off. A big colourful sign beside the entrance might help if this it did turn out to be a problem. On the other hand after the plain exterior and the rather dark lobby, the experience of going through the second door into the main aviary becomes more effective. The planting inside looks good now, but it should become more impressive as time passes.
@gentle lemur That's good. I think the external planting will also help. This looks like the kind of development that really poses the question "why is every zoo doing this?"
Thinking about this aviary, it strikes me that it is actually quite an economical method of construction. Looking at zoogiraffe's images of its construction (a few pages previously in this Gallery) you can see that only the shelter is actually built of breeze blocks, the other walls are the plastic sheets, presumably suspended on a frame, on low walls of a few courses of blocks. I guess that minimal foundations were required.
These plastic sheets also make the roof, held up by the wooden poles, with a conventional aviary net suspended from the two metal poles covering the main flight.
I don't suppose that it will last for 50 years, but I don't see that as a real problem.
