Gomphothere's Zoo Design Thread

Cat-Man said:
Wow. You continue to exceed all expectations. Please tell me you will complete this zoo?

But yes, it's absolutely fantastic and the tour is so well explained. What part of the zoo will you be tackling next?
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The museum. He mentions it in his post.

~ Thaumatibis
 
Cat-Man said:
Wow. You continue to exceed all expectations. Please tell me you will complete this zoo?

But yes, it's absolutely fantastic and the tour is so well explained. What part of the zoo will you be tackling next?
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Hope to complete, but can only get one exhibit done at a time, LOL. I'm part way into designing the museum at the center. It shouldn't take long. After that, am trying to decide between tackling the Nearctic (North American) tundra and taiga/boreal forest or to start working on Australasia.
 
Gomphothere you're incredible. I'd say the only other members who can compare to you in zoo design are jbnbsn99 and DesertRhino150.
 
Take as much time as you need, it's really worth the wait. Just please don't stop halfway though and don't complete it because you will ruin me ;)

These have got to be the best ever exhibit designs on zoochat. They're so detailed!
 
@Gompothere- My one suggestion is not to repeat species. Pintails, blue footed boobies, and night herons appear in several exhibits. It worked for the three tortouse subspecies, but I don't see a reason for these species. Sorry to be a stick the mud, but I think that it matters.

~ Thaumatibis
 
Thaumatibis said:
@Gompothere- My one suggestion is not to repeat species. Pintails, blue footed boobies, and night herons appear in several exhibits. It worked for the three tortouse subspecies, but I don't see a reason for these species. Sorry to be a stick the mud, but I think that it matters.

~ Thaumatibis
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I understand the concern, but there are two reasons I do it, which are worth mentioning. First, they are, in nature, part of the habitat depicted, so they are also part of giving the visitor an accurate picture, a picture that shows that there are some species that live in a variety of habitats while others are more narrowly distributed. This is part of this zoo's lesson in zoogeography. Second, this is part of modern zoo keeping. If you go to the Bronx Zoo, there are lots of species there that you'll see in more than one exhibit. Part of it is keeping a larger community of them so that, if disease hits one group, you've got a fighting chance of saving the other(s), which is particularly important with rare/vulnerable/threatened/endangered species. Part of it also is, especially with a reclusive species like a Night Heron, giving the visitors a chance of seeing the animal at least once since a good, landscaped exhibit is intended to make an animal feel safe and inevitably means that you won't see every animal in there every time.
 
Gomphothere said:
I understand the concern, but there are two reasons I do it, which are worth mentioning. First, they are, in nature, part of the habitat depicted, so they are also part of giving the visitor an accurate picture, a picture that shows that there are some species that live in a variety of habitats while others are more narrowly distributed. This is part of this zoo's lesson in zoogeography. Second, this is part of modern zoo keeping. If you go to the Bronx Zoo, there are lots of species there that you'll see in more than one exhibit. Part of it is keeping a larger community of them so that, if disease hits one group, you've got a fighting chance of saving the other(s), which is particularly important with rare/vulnerable/threatened/endangered species. Part of it also is, especially with a reclusive species like a Night Heron, giving the visitors a chance of seeing the animal at least once since a good, landscaped exhibit is intended to make an animal feel safe and inevitably means that you won't see every animal in there every time.
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Good point. I'm impressed by yoyr answer.

~ Thaumatibis
 
Thaumatibis said:
Good point. I'm impressed by yoyr answer.

~ Thaumatibis
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Thanks. Remember, too, that visitors like you or I never miss an exhibit if we can help it, but the average visitor skips stuff. They might glance inside the mini-Galapagos hall and say to themselves: "Eh, maybe later." If they stick to the main exhibits, they'll nonetheless have the chance to see a Night Heron in Galapagos by Night. Also, what we'd like for the more thoughtful visitors to do is to start asking questions like these, which can be answered in the signage: Why do we see Lava Herons in salt and brackish water but not fresh? Why do we see Pintails and Gallinules in brackish and fresh water but not the seashore? Why do we see Pintails and Gallinules at both low and high altitudes but not the other semi-aquatic birds?
 
ENTRANCE COMPLEXES

There are five entrance complexes, two at each end of the two main parking lots (which means one at the Arctic Holarctic Exhibit, one at Antarctica, and two at the Galápagos Complex) and one at the east end of the zoo, which will be a direct connection to a public transit station. They have appeared on the exhibit designs simply as rectangular buildings, so I thought I should share my concept for those:

1. There will be windows for admission, including public, membership, special and group categories, with waiting space under cover to make the admissions process "all-weather" welcoming.

2. There will be booths for both membership inquiries and application intake and employment inquiries and application intake (a zoo this size will have sizeable employment needs and even with a low level of turnover will be continually hiring).

3. On the inside of the entrance structure, there will be windows selling tickets for tour and transportation options and special programs such as the dolphin shows.

4. The transportation options will include tour bus, stroller rental, monorail and bicycles, which will work like New York City's Citibikes -- your bike card gives you access to the system. You ride the bike to your next destination and simply leave it at a bike depot. When you're ready for your next bike ride, find a depot and grab a bike. All the outdoor walks will have bike lanes, and those on the main concourses will be isolated from pedestrians by a small curb, but there will also be a low speed limit. Certain outdoor walks, such as those running along highly popular exhibits, will be "Bikes Must Be Walked" zones, and no bikes will be allowed in the buildings.

5. Tour options will be many, although not all will be available at all times. They will include an open on-and-off at your option bus that will take you to many of the zoo's highlights and smaller, guided "theme" tours that concentrate on a certain geographic area (e.g., one of the ecozones), or taxonomic group (e.g., bears or swans of the world), or habitat types (e.g., deserts or islands of the world), or evolutionary concept (such as examples of parallel evolution, an overview of vertebrate evolution, or tracing the living and fossil evidence of human evolution), or even a tour of those exhibits with baby animals. The entrance building will include some classrooms where the small group theme tour groups can assemble for an introductory lecture.

6. From the inside, there will also be access to a set of public restrooms, of course, and a refreshment stand. Maybe we should even have a couple of old-fashioned pay telephone booths!

7. There will also be an office for special visitor services, such as lost and found and first aid, and for security issues.

8. The building will contain staff space (locker rooms, lounge, rest rooms, etc.) for all the workers at the entrance complex as well as the parking workers and tour and transportation workers who stop there during the day.

9. The open space just inside the entrances will be where people can pick up bicycles and meet their tour transportation.

10. The open space will also have a large display map of the zoo and smaller, touch screen interactive maps.

11. People will have a choice of a direct exit or exiting through a sizeable gift shop that will sell not only souvenirs but all manner of animal gifts, including books and art, the last including replicas of the art pieces displayed at the zoo's exhibits. When you shop at one of the gift shops elsewhere in the zoo, you will have the option of simply picking up the item you purchase at the gift shop at your chosen exit, so you don't have to carry it all around the zoo with you.
 
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Cat-Man said:
This level of detail is magnificent. I hope the gift shop will sell guidebooks!
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LOL, yeah, I've been thinking about that (I think about this project while I walk my dogs). My preliminary idea is as follows: Each visitor will be provided with a paper map that unfolds to about 20"x17". One side of the map would show the western (New World) part of the zoo (Nearctic, Neotropic, Polar and central "mid-Atlantic" exhibits) with a 3" band at the bottom containing a numbered key and about an 5 1/2" band along the side providing general zoo information. The other side would show the larger, eastern (Old World) part of the zoo with a 3" bottom band containing a numbered key. The scale would be such that the full zoo would be on about a 15"x 28" scale, or about twice the size of the master schematic I originally posted. At that level of detail, it would only be able to list the ecoregions, and maybe one or two of the iconic animals in each one, such as 1. Arctic Holarctic (Polar Bears, Beluga Whales, etc.). Interactive touch screen maps which would enable visitors to find individual species and exhibits would be available all around the zoo. In addition, for those of us old-fashioned types who prefer paper in our hands, the zoo would sell a bound paper-back guide providing exhibit and species level detail. And of course there would be a special coffee-table book, lavishly illustrated, a perfect gift for your favorite zoo lover, even yourself! ;-)

Plus, there will a scale model of the entire zoo that will be part of the zoo. More on that in a later posting.
 
I just found out that the green warbler finch is not found on Wolf or Darwin islands. You may be confusing it with the grey warbler finch.

~ Thaumatibis
 
Thaumatibis said:
I just found out that the green warbler finch is not found on Wolf or Darwin islands. You may be confusing it with the grey warbler finch.

~ Thaumatibis
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You are correct, sir. I went back and looked at the sources upon which I relied for distribution and they all indicate the Gray/Grey Warbler Finch is the one on Darwin and Wolf Islands. Must have been my typo when I took the notes. My handwriting is bad enough to account for the error, unfortunately.
 
Gomphothere said:
You are correct, sir. I went back and looked at the sources upon which I relied for distribution and they all indicate the Gray/Grey Warbler Finch is the one on Darwin and Wolf Islands. Must have been my typo when I took the notes. My handwriting is bad enough to account for the error, unfortunately.
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what sources do you use? Not much on the web.

~ Thaumatibis
 
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