New zoo design where animals can't see you

it's not really "in the works", it is just a concept. And it seems to be based largely on the fanciful idea that so long as the animals can't see people then they won't suffer "the undeniable psychological and physical toll that captivity takes on animals" as the journalist puts it.
 
It is rather astounding how that New York Times article about the animal behaviorist who works with zoos has been spun NOT as zoos working to care for animals, but rather as animals suffer horribly in zoos.

I would appreciate the concept that a sentient being who expresses behavioral issues and would benefit from professional help is clearly in an abusive environment and would better be relocated to a more supportive and sustaining environment.... but then 70% of our citizens and most corporate workers would have to be relocated to live free ranging on farms

Yet the anti-zoo folk don't seem to make that connection.... odd blindness to their fellow humans
 
Of course this will do nothing to conceal the smell of humans, nor the sounds of them, which I think are more likely to disturb animals.

The only animals I think have a real chance of being fooled are primates, especially the great apes. Which is strange since they have always seemed to me either unconcerned by people or interested in interacting with them.

It all looks very swish, but usually that means in 15 years it will look terrible and in 30 we'll be wondering why anyone approved this abomination in the first place. 21st century Tectons.
 
Sometimes people who know nothing about animals produce strangest visions. Riding bikes covered with mirrors so animals can't see you...

It is absurd from so many angles... What person would like to ride a bike like that? Second - as people already pointed, animals are easily accustomed to people, and most operate by smell. And seeing a 'rival' in the mirror is likely to introduce much bigger stress...

It reminds me of one previous idea from Argentina to build a zoo in a gigantic vertical tower...

...Maybe introduce an idea that hardcore animal lovers going to the zoo should roll in mud, to put themselves in a perspective of animal, and to mask the smell? ;)
 
I wonder if the people who thought of this thought about what would be more stressful to an animal: exposure to visitors (these animals are exposed to humans through their keepers, it's not like they've never seen a human), or a line of mysterious giant marbles going over their enclosures on a daily basis? ;)
 
I like the idea of being less invasive in a zoo to allow animals to express more natural behaviors. However, the mirrors are comical. How do they figure animals wouldn't be able to notice mirrored bikes and mirrored gondolas moving around. How serious is this concept anyway?
 
elefante said:
I like the idea of being less invasive in a zoo to allow animals to express more natural behaviors. However, the mirrors are comical. How do they figure animals wouldn't be able to notice mirrored bikes and mirrored gondolas moving around. How serious is this concept anyway?
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Yeah, I do like the idea of zoos where animals would notice less human presence and, like you said, get to express more natural behaviors, but some of these suggestions are weird and don't make a lot of sense. Like, a lot of animals rely heavily on smell and hearing. Even if they can't see a human, they might be able to hear or smell it.
 
As such a lot of animals even large pachyderms such as rhinos can have poor eyesight the other senses come into play much more than people realize,so as has been said, visibility isn't as important regarding zoo visitors.
Their behavior is though, fence rattling and glass banging etc, etc. As zooman said, it sounds like another attempt by A rights groups to put the doubt into peoples minds that captivity is bad, most of the comments posted on the site I have seen are pro zoo though, which is a good thing.
 
The interesting side of this story is that the zoo supports the concept, at least in part. This is not a situation where some urban planning student got a clever idea for a student project:
"According to Givskud Zoo‘s director Richard Østerballe, the park’s transformation will benefit greatly from BIG’s fresh approach to design–one that has been characterized by the integration of nature and natural elements into cutting-edge, innovative architecture. "
 
Some exhibits are designed for visitors to be less visible. Many gorilla exhibits are surrounded by bushes. So when you look from gorillas perspective, they are surrounded by greenery, with just one small pocket where people are visible.

Cat house in Prague has completely dark visitror area, a bit set off from glass, and with animal sounds played around. It has cool 'jungle' atmosphere, and people are almost un-noticeable for the cats.

Overall, zoos might care more, but rather about noise, especially from roads outside, restaurants, carousels etc.

But, of course, lots of hoofed animals and monkeys in zoos don't fear people but will approach them and hope for tidbits.
 
The title of this thread is based on misleading reporting. The article reminds me of some earlier incomplete/inaccurate reporting where the journalist relied on few or only one source because he couldn't understand the native language. A summary based on Danish news reports from the leadership of the zoo:

1. Except for the circular entrance building there will be an attempt of hiding buildings from view with vegetation, building into hills, etc. This is primarily for the human visitors, not animals. This seems to be the main discussion point of this thread but it is based entirely on bad reporting: The only one who apparently thinks it truly may fool the animals (beyond perhaps a few highly visually oriented species) is the journalist. Let's compare the articles: First A Redesigned Zoo Where Humans Stay Hidden Could Be Better For Animals which supposedly ("According to...") is based on this article. The second article says plenty about hiding buildings and providing good homes for animals. They don't say anything about the animals being fooled by hidden humans. The writer of the first article also links to the architects project site and a Danish article. They don't claim to be able to fool the animals by hiding the humans either. I've not seen anyone associated with the project making the hidden humans fooling animals claim!
2. There will be a new big entrance building. The circular thing shown on the first and second photo in the article. I don't care much about entrance buildings and I imagine most people on this forum feel the same. Who visits a zoo for the entrance building anyway?
3. Much of the current safari park is only clearly visible by car and zoo train/bus. In the new plans more will be visible by walking or possibly through pedal powered vehicles. The mirror bubble things on the illustration are unlikely to ever go further than the mind of the architect. Land vehicles (e.g. 4 wheel family bicycles), a boat and perhaps small pedal/electric powered cable cars may go ahead.
4. Current exhibits in the zoo will largely remain in extensively updated and in some cases expanded versions. Animals will be moved around when new exhibits open to follow the overall geographic scope. The most obvious differences compared to current exhibits will be access and that they will make greater attempts of removing all man-made things from view. Fortunately this also means that the square concrete block exhibit visible on one of the illustrations has next to no chance of appearing. That illustration was mainly made to show an approximate representation of the entrance building. The things around it are more or less random filler. The pandas on the same illustration are only marginally more likely to ever appear than the square concrete block exhibit.
5. The zoo plans on doubling its current size to about 120 hectares (300 acre). They already own the areas set aside for expansion.
6. This is very much an early overall concept and detailed plans for the individual exhibits generally have not been completed. The entrance and 2-3 new exhibits are expected to be part of phase one. This is supposed to be ready for 2019. Let's see how much of the architects concept will be followed. The director of the zoo has already said that he likes the fresh approach/ideas but some things will have to be changed.

If they follow the overall concept they could end up as the zoo that has taken the (old) idea of hiding barriers and other man-made structures to the most extreme. All in all I don't think there are any completely new zoo ideas in the concept plan. Except perhaps the extensive use of pedal powered visitor transport and the idea that the entrance building's roof will functions as a lookout point over the central zoo. Most Danes would probably enjoy the pedal power idea because Denmark is already a nation of cyclists.

I'm surprised that American news sites use space on reporting on European zoo news in this very early phase. It would be slightly easier to understand if they had begun any of the contructions or at least had finished plans. When new exhibits actually open in American zoos you often can't find anything except on small local news sites.
 
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there are quite a few versions of this news item popping up about the place, like this one.
In zoo of future, animals roam free with no cages
In the future, it will be the humans — not the animals — who are contained in small spaces at a zoo in Denmark.

The Givskud Zoo accepted a design from BIG architects that has no cages and allows animals to live in a landscape very similar to their natural habitats, the zoo announced this week.

Zoo visitors observe from spherical pods in the water or suspended from ziplines that are propelled by pedaling, said Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG.

"Rather than looking at a single animal alone in a cage, which is a very unnatural way of experiencing an animal, sometimes you're outnumbered by the animals and you see them in a real habitat," Ingels told USA TODAY Network.

The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by 2019, according to a BIG statement.

The zoo's main entrance will consist of a "crater-like" building with a promenade that overlooks the animal habitats.

Three gates lead the visitors to the three main sections of the zoo — divided into Africa, America and Asia. A path of about 2.5 miles will connect the three areas, reports ArchDaily.com.

Instead of cages or fences, the zoo uses waterways or changes in elevation as natural barriers between the animals and visitors, Ingels said.

In the past, BIG has tried to incorporate the natural world into cityscapes. With this project, Ingels said architects were introducing architecture into nature.

"It makes it much more enjoyable not only for the visitors, but also for the animals," he said. "They have much more desirable conditions."
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and Zootopia by BIG architects redesigns Denmark’s Givskud Zoo into a cage-free habitat.
The concept of a zoo will always feel fundamentally unjust. Poor design only highlights the caged aspect that makes it so uncomfortable for kept animals to bear the ever-present human gaze from the other side of the partition.

But ArchDaily reports that Danish architecture firm BIG has come up with Zootopia, an innovative plan to reimagine the 1960s-era Givskud Zoo in Denmark that would create a cage-free, design-forward layout for captive animals and the humans who love to gawk at them.

The architects have proposed concealing buildings for ticket sales, shops, restaurants, and other visitor needs. They will remove unsightly cages and partitions and allow animals to roam more freely in an open-plan environment that is a seamless landscape of savannas, rivers, and forests. Organized by Africa, America, and Asia, the zoo redesign will have contained, elevated viewing areas for humans, giving the creatures more space to roam in atmospheres more akin to their native habitats than a traditional zoo.

“Architects’ greatest and most important task is to design man-made ecosystems,” the designers write in a project statement, “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 needs as well as the common good. Nowhere is this challenge more acrimonious than in a zoo.”

Details for the 300-acre site, whose first phase is expected to be completed in 2019, are still being fine-tuned, but the designers have come up with a number of ingenious ways to hide humans from the animals, using mirrors to deflect their presence and allowing visitors to glimpse the captive wildlife on a hiking trail around the complex or by bike, boat, or from above.

Shelter for the animals will be tailor-made to mimic their natural surroundings, with bamboo cottages for the pandas, a hill of rice fields for the elephants, stacked lumber huts for the bears, rock enclosures for the penguins, a lion hill, and savanna enclosures for zebras and giraffes.

“It is our dream ... to create the best possible and freest possible environment for the animals’ lives and relationships with each other and visitors,” the architects write. “To create a framework for such diverse users and residents such as gorillas, wolves, bears, lions and elephants is an extremely complex task.”
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