Lincoln Park Zoo Regenstein African Journey, Chicago

The Lincoln Park Zoo welcomes 3 million visitors each year, and the facility's intimate setting allows guests to experience the excitement of the exhibits.
The zoo recently completed a new animal and visitor facility, the Regenstein African Journey.

Its predecessor, the Regenstein Large Mammal House, was originally designed and built in the early 1970s. Since then, animal conservation and display philosophies have changed dramatically, thus requiring renovation and reconfiguration of the 60,000-sq.-ft. building.

The Regenstein African Journey features large, lush habitats for African animals: wild dogs, aardvarks, giraffes, elephants and more. The $23 million facility opened in May 2003.

Exhibit Features

The original concrete building structure was completely gutted. This allowed for the installation of massive skylights that permit natural light and the transformation of the interior from a bare-bones animal enclosure to a richly themed environment.

A new entry with African motifs was designed that is sympathetic in material and scale to the other historic zoo buildings on the campus. Two new exterior plazas have also been developed that allow for special visitor gatherings and celebrations.

An immersion environment was designed so that visitors could travel through a variety of African ecosystems featuring native animals and plants. Also included is the greatly expanded exterior exhibit featuring animals of the African savanna.

Receiving Materials in Zoo

The facility is in the center of the zoo campus with no street access. Coordinating the materials that came into the site was key.

Deliveries were received before 9 a.m. each day, and vehicles came in on existing paths. Visitor paths that encircle the building were kept open, resulting in high pedestrian traffic surrounding the site and the need for care.

The large number of materials - terrazzo, wood plants, rubber flooring, masonry, vinyl - meant that the carefully coordinated staging within in S-shaped facility was important.

The project started in the summer, and early hurdles included the concrete roof framing and 10,000 sq. ft. of aluminum-framed skylights. These tasks were accomplished ahead of the first winter while simultaneously working on structures and utilities below.

Gazing at Glazing

Four critical acrylic glazing panels were installed that ranged in size from the 4-ft.-radius cockroach viewing panel to the 12,000-lb., double-curved panel for the hippopotamus viewing area.

These custom exhibits were made with five separate factory-bonded belly panels. The 32 ft. long, 11 ft. high, 10 ft. wide belly unit was moved and set with two cranes and a series of chain falls after traveling through a 100-ft.-long obstacle course inside the building.

The first two acrylic panels were designed for the cockroach viewing and crocodile viewing areas. They were coordinated to be set through the last remaining skylight opening.

The hippopotamus exhibit was the middle section, and the final piece contained an 11,000-lb., 7-in.-thick cichlid (African carp) viewing panel. No panels could be removed, but the cichlid panel could not be installed without a big impact on the schedule.

To overcome this, the concrete mezzanine above the panels was completed prior to the concrete foundations below so that the panel could be craned and chain-falled into the cichlid tank below the mezzanine in a trench.

The deep underground life support system piping needed for feeding the crocodile, hippopotamus and other exhibit tanks was released late. This was addressed by creating a second deep sump that raised the depth of the gravity-drained piping.

Close coordination with all trades resulted in the complete installation by the first snowfall.

Other hurdles involved exhibits and animal needs, and all exhibits and visitor areas are themed. Twenty-foot-tall palm trees were installed to create an atmosphere where visitors have full immersion in a rain forest, dry forest and Lake Malawi bed.

Graphics, interactive exhibits and lighting were installed after moving the animals into the building eight months ahead of the opening to begin assimilation.

The general contractor on the project self-performed the wrap up animal holding shop drawings and took charge of walking the owner and design team through the critical value engineering.

The jury said, "This was a complicated project that took extraordinary coordination. The exhibits were open while reconstruction was under way. The mechanical/electrical requirements of each independent ecosystem added to the complexity of the job."

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