The new elephant house in Zurich Zoo is embedded in the extensive landscape of the newly designed Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park.
The characteristic element of the new elephant house is its striking wooden roof which blends into the landscape as a shallow free-form shell-structure. The roof dissolves into a transparent maze-like structure that establishes an organic relationship to the surrounding forest. In the interior the roof unfolds its atmospheric effect: as if through a canopy of trees the sunlight filters through the intricate roof structure generating constantly changing light atmospheres.
Program: zoo
Architects: Markus Schietsch Architekten
General planners: cga, BGS Architekten
Construction management: Fischer Architekten, BGS Architekten
Landscape architect: Lorenz Eugster Landschaftsarchitektur, Vetsch Partner Landschaftsarchitekten
Structural engineers: Walt + Galmarini
Technical services: TriAir Consulting
Electrical engineers: Schmidiger + Rosasco
Light design: Bartenbach Lichtlabor
Cost: 57.0 M SFr
Area: 8,440 sqm
Completion: 2015
The roof is designed as a shallow, free-spanning wooden shell. Prefabricated triple-layer panels were bent on-site into their form and nailed up. The openings were cut out on-site from the massive wooden shell. The continuously changing facade structure consists of lamellas that seemingly grow up to the edge of the roof as an organically shaped band indicating the loadbearing areas.
The iconographic shell of the roof together with the dynamic facade form an atmospheric envelope and pictographic “Nature-Construction” concentrating the essence of the design into a symbiosis between architecture and landscape.
from domusweb