Elephants' Landscape
Location: Copenhagen Zoo, Denmark
Client: Copenhagen Zoo
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Malene Krüger, Friedemann Rüter, Kim Madsen, Flemming Thomsen, Malin Blomqvist
Collaborators: Foster & Partners, Rambøll, Buro Happold, Davis Langdon, Ultraaqua
Design phase: 2002-2007
Construction: 2005-2008
Area: 1,1 ha.
Cost of construction: 20 mill. €
Funded by the Realdania Foundation
Creative Award 2008-09
Betonprisen 2009 / Kbh Zoo
iByen-Prisen 2009 / Årets Idé
Watch the video 'Let's Not Talk About Aesthetics' by SLA and learn more about the project
SLA has designed the landscaping for the Copenhagen Zoo’s new elephant area, whilst the elephant house itself is designed by the famous British architect Lord Norman Foster. The outline project was funded by the Realdania Foundation, which has presented the outline project and the overall planning to Copenhagen Zoo as a gift.
The project is not only be sensory experience for visitors to the Zoo. Visitors in the historic Frederiksberg Park also have something new and special to look at. In connection with the renovation of the northern part of the Zoological Gardens, the boundary between the Zoo and the landscaped park has been opened. In this way it is possible from the Zoo to observe the life of the elephants with Frederiksberg Park as a painterly background.
Park visitors experience the elephants with both the old and the new elephant houses as background. The buildings and the winding elephant landscape thus merge into the romantic park as a new and exotic feature.
