I greatly prefer this tasteful and brilliant exhibit to the garish and pointless architectural monstrosity that is Healesville's new outdoor platypus area. I really don't know what they were thinking when deciding to build a platypus enclosure out of marbles (yes, round marbleS--not marble!).
I greatly prefer this tasteful and brilliant exhibit to the garish and pointless architectural monstrosity that is Healesville's new outdoor platypus area.
Yes, it is a bit over the top from an architectural point of view, but I must say that I'm a bit over dark rooms with water tanks in them with a few platypus swimming around (although Healsville's is very good).
What I appreciated about the outdoor Platypussary was that it was outdoors, open air, and (if they are awake) you can get an excellent view of this rarely seen creature.
We were lucky this day - we arrived during one of the bird shows, so there was nobody else around, it was very quiet, nice and sunny, and both of the Platypus in there decided to come out and play. We got nearly 30 minutes of wonderful viewing of them swimming around the pool - and I must say that my focus was on the platypus rather than the interesting design choices they made.
like sim, i prefer to try my luck with platypus outdoors, though i also agree that the indoor exhibit at heallesville is much better than most.
and i don't even have that much of a problem with the overall structure of the outdoor exhibit. fancy architecture in zoo exhibits doesn't bother so long as its offset by the actual animal space itself being natural. a good example is melbourne museums forest gallery. the whole thing is very modern. the people space doesn't attempt to blend in with the natural world. but they get away with it. because the natural parts of the exhibit are as authentic as you can get. from the leaf litter to the tall ferns. the museum staff let the space operate as a natural forest would. complete with deadfall, leaf litter and rotting vegetation. its real.
now compare that with this. the actual animal space has also been purposefully designed to appear artificial. had the designers used rocks, plants and dirt to disguise their concrete rather than studding them with marbles then i would have liked this exhibit a lot. in short i don't mind being in an artificial world myself, so long as the world i'm looking into is natural.
its the same reason i hate melbourne's new seal/penguin exhibit.
I really enjoyed this exhibit complex. It was a great presentation of the platypus's ecological world with exhibits for water rats, yabbies, the Murray River cod, and several other native fish species in addition to the platypus. This exhibit would be the envy of any zoo in the world.
