New Elephant House
- Copenhagen Zoo
Roskildevej 32
2007
Architect: Foster + Partners
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
10 June 2008
Elephant House opens at Copenhagen Zoo
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
The new Elephant House at Copenhagen Zoo opened today following an official
ceremony attended by His Royal Highness the Prince Consort of Denmark
and his grandson, Prince Christian.
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
This new Elephant House provides these magnificent animals with a stimulating
environment, including easily accessible spaces for the public to enjoy
them, and restores the visual relationship between the zoo and the park.
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
The project has been driven by research into the behavioural patterns
of elephants. The tendency for bull elephants in the wild to roam away
from the main herd prompted a plan organised around two separate enclosures.
Covered with lightweight, glazed domes to provide natural light, these
enclosures are designed to bring a sense of light and openness to a building
type traditionally characterised as closed. The spaces maintain a strong
visual connection with the sky and changing patterns of daylight and the
distinctive ‘fritting’ on the glazing simulates a canopy of
trees. The varying levels on the site are exploited in cross-section.
The elephant enclosures are set deep into the ground, ensuring excellent
insulation on the perimeter walls and a natural fusion with the landscape.
Additionally, the glazed domes have opening windows to allow natural ventilation
and there is a heat recovery system – further enhancing the environmental
efficiency of the scheme.
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
The Elephant House is Foster + Partners’ first zoological building.
Inserted into the natural contours of the site, it replaces a structure
dating from 1914 and sets new standards in zoological design, providing
the animals with a stimulating environment that recreates aspects of their
former Asian habitat. It is built with a warm terracotta-coloured concrete
and the yellow beach-like sand that naturally existed on the site has
been recycled to create the paddocks. The colours and textures convey
a sense of the dry riverbed as found at the edge of the rainforest –
a favourite haunt of Asian elephants. With mud holes, scattered pools
of water and shading objects, the new Elephant House is a place where
the animals can play and interact naturally. Broad public viewing terraces
run around the domes externally, while a ramped promenade leads down into
an educational space, looking into the enclosures along the way.
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
Spencer de Grey, Senior Executive and Head of Design said:
“As our first zoo project, we were asked to create a new enclosure
for a herd of Asian Elephants in Denmark’s renowned Copenhagen Zoo.
We have designed a building that not only responds to the animals’
natural behaviour, but is also a seamless insertion into the landscape
that uses the site’s natural properties to provide thermal insulation.
We are delighted to learn that the elephants are enjoying their new home.”
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
Designed by Sir Norman Foster, architect of famous buildings such as Swiss
Re, Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank and Chep Lap Kok Airport
Elephant House
Copenhagen architects - Foster & Partners
Nigel Young_Foster + Partners
Proposed underground Elephant House extension, similar to the Welsh project
by Norman Foster some years back
Topping-out images:
image credit: Nigel Young, from Foster + Partners
Copenhagen Zoo - Opening Hours
(check with the operators, correct as of early 2006)
The Zoo is open every day in the year
Copenhagen Zoo - Address:
Roskildevej 32, Box 7, DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Tel +45 72 200 200 / Information: +45 72 200 280
Photo of the Elephant House development from across the park:
Zoo building photo 27 Aug 2006 © adrian welch
Copenhagen Architects
Foster + Partners
Copenhagen Zoo is the most visited cultural institution in Denmark, attracting
over 1.2 million visitors a year and is set within an historic royal park,
adjacent to the Fredriksberg Palace.
Foster + Partners
The carefully considered landscape, designed by Stig L Andersson, seeks
to reinforce the relationship between the zoo and the adjacent royal park
and provides the public with more accessible viewing and educational facilities.
image credit: Foster + Partners
New standards have been set in terms of the elephants’ well-being.
The main herd enclosure will, for the first time, enable elephants in
captivity to spend the night together, as they would in the wild.
image credit: Foster + Partners
The ‘fritting’ pattern on the glazed roof canopies was created
by sampling four species of tree. A computer script was written to rotate,
scale and randomly populate the roof, so that no two ‘leaves’
are the same. The overlapping pattern provides naturalistic dappled light.
View of existing Elephant House at the Zoo:
Building photo 27 Aug 2006 © adrian welch
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page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt
Website: www.zoo.dk