Elephants in the room

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The roof provides plenty of natural daylight. (Foster + Partners)

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The house has an extensive exterior. (Foster + Partners)

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Bull elephants live in the smaller section. (Foster + Partners)

Foster + Partners apply great design to create a better home for one of the world's favourite animals. James Boley finds out more.

Most architects will, at some stage in their career, have to work for a client with very particular demands. Very few, however, will find themselves designing a home for end users that are 4m tall, weigh 5000kg and never forget-yet that's exactly the situation Foster + Partners (F+P) found itself in when commissioned by Copenhagen Zoo to design a new house for its seven Asian elephants.

A far cry from the zoo's somewhat inauspicious beginnings in 1859-the animals and habitats at that time included chickens, rabbits, a seal in a bathtub and a turtle in a bucket-F+P's Elephant House is a facility that revolutionises zoo structural design and sets new standards for animal welfare.

Taking Le Corbusier's proclamation of "the house is a machine for living in" literally, the new home is tailor-made to suit the day to day needs of the elephants, keepers and visitors.

Brief encounters

The Elephant House is F+P's first zoo project, and at first glance, it seems, at least conceptually, to be a million miles away from its signature projects of 30 St. Mary Axe or the Reichstag building. However, whether designing for people or pachyderms, the fundamentals remain the same.

"Once you get beyond the client requirements, it's like any other project. It's designing a tailored response to the brief, and the construction technology is the same as on any other project," explains John Jennings, project architect at Foster + Partners.

Design of the Elephant House drew on the wealth of scientific research the zoo has conducted into elephant behaviour, allowing Copenhagen Zoo to provide a very extensive brief, says Jennings.

"They wrote us an extremely detailed brief that went into the biology and behaviour of the elephants, their reach, height, weight, what they like, what they don't like and what is necessary for their health," he says.

As part of the research, two of Jennings' colleagues even spent a day working as keepers in order to understand the requirements of the building from the perspective of zoo staff. He describes the building as similar to a theatre.

"As well as being there during the day to entertain the public, they do have a very complex daily schedule for the keepers, for cleaning, maintenance, training and feeding-all that goes on behind the scenes but has to be smoothly integrated into the schedules," says Jennings.

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