Though it will need some time to let the vegetation mature, it does come across as quite cramped and looks more like a fake rock garden than any attempt at creating a rainforest atmosphere, based on the pictures. What were your thoughts?
You must know that the owner didn't want to create a tropical greenhouse like Burgers' Bush or Masoala. The idea at the beginning (in the Master Plan done in 2014) was to create a reptile house (1.500/2.000 m2) for giant reptiles, fruit bats, butterflies and sharks...
Evolving, the owner choose to create a bigger building for winter time and to house quite the same species plus to relocate the manatees and to welcome new highlights (giant otters, pygmy hippos, doucs...).
And this is just that : a big house for reptiles and some others species. It will never be a rainforest or something like. When you know that, it is ok.
Yes, it did strike me as slightly cramped and as if everything has been fitted in theoretically without any real thought about space between enclosures for vegetation. I wish a little more thought had been put into it sometimes to get a better result. Obviously the species list is impressive, but the execution could well be better. Having said that, I don't think the budget was too high, so I guess it sort of makes sense, I just wish they had maybe taken one exhibit out - maybe the squirrel monkey exhibit and instead add a little vegetation to space it all out a bit. However, I do get that the plan was to make a reptile house rather than a Masoala at first, and we couldn't really expect Masoala given the nature of the project and Beauval's approach to building exhibits (fast is best) .
You don't think the budget was too high ? It was 25.000.000 € at the beginning and near 40.000.000 € at the completion. I think it's far too expensive for just a big reptiles house.
@amur leopard Building costs in the US in general are far higher than in Europe, especially so for California, so it is not really comparable, especially not with rural France. For comparison the whole Islands project in Chester cost 45 million euros and Gondwanaland in Leipzig 68 million euros. If you see what you get in return, this 40 million euros is a lot of money.
That is fair enough. Although Gondwanaland is kind of comparable with the Dome, isn't it? They are different, but it isn't as if it was terribly overpriced for what it was...
Do you happen to know what Masoala cost?
@amur leopard Gondwanaland is roughly twice the size of this dome and has paid a lot more attention to landscaping and includes more features. Masoala cost roughly 50 million euros, but you can't compare it with the others as it was built close to 20 years ago and construction in Switzerland is roughly 1.5-2 times more expensive as in other parts of Europe.
