2024 Wellington Architecture Awards Winner
Wellington Zoo Snow Leopards Enclosure
The architects have successfully juggled the spoken brief and silent needs of all involved in this project. The snow leopards seem to relish their new environment, leisurely sleeping on the sheltered purpose-made dens, providing visitors with the experience of seeing these majestic creatures up close. Perching areas give a more distant view and allow privacy for the animals, on their own terms. The enclosure’s hard landscape is sustainably built, reusing the old sun-bear enclosure materials as fill, minimising waste removal in line with the zoo’s sustainability goals. The paramount safety of the zookeepers is integrated into the design. Black steel mesh, a key safety feature, and its supporting structure anchored in precast buttresses, is cheerfully detailed with snow-leopard markings. The project, designed through the Covid period, speaks to the animals’ native landscape, while anchoring the visitor experience here in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and the country’s oldest zoo.
- Practice
- Architecture Workshop Ltd
- Category
- Public Architecture
- Location
- Wellington
