Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Coe's design process often begins with a story line or scenario, a descrip-
tion of the exhibits as if they already existed. A concept is suggested, and
then all the component parts—animal facilities, viewing positions and
paths, ground cover, vegetation, water features, interpretive signs, acoustical
features, and mechanical systems—are developed to fit the scenario. Ideas
and images emerge partly from Coe or other CLR designers, partly from
the client's program. “There are a lot of people making this happen,” Coe
explains.“It's very much a team effort. By the time a project is actually built,
it might have had two or three hundred people involved. It's not just hav-
ing a certain vision, but it's having the communication to get it built the
way you envisioned it.”
Although his name is identified with landscape immersion, Coe does not
feel confined by that concept. He continues to expand and refine the
immersion experience. For example, he has advocated placing animals on
higher ground than human viewers, arguing that the physical act of look-
ing up will unconsciously engender in visitors an attitude of respect for
wildlife. But he has also created innovative zoo exhibits that take an entirely
different approach. In a “Primate Reserve” for the Philadelphia Zoo, CLR
wanted to bring visitors closer to the monkeys and apes and allow people
to watch behind-the-scenes interactions with caregivers that are hidden in
immersion exhibits. The CLR team came up with a scenario of an aban-
doned lumber mill in the tropics that had been converted to a primate
research and conservation station. They built a new $14 million structure
that looks convincingly like a rehabilitated industrial building. Within the
building, they used affiliative design principles to minimize visible barriers
between visitor and animal spaces. There are even “howdy crates” where
animals and visitors can come face to face through a glass partition. Coe
believes such zoo concepts can become models for real wildlife rescue and
conservation facilities around the world.
Coe now regards landscape immersion as “just one tool in the tool kit.”
Recently, he has been exploring the use of other important tools, such as
operant conditioning training and behavioral enrichment, which in turn
affect design. Operant conditioning, developed by Karen Pryor and other
marine mammal trainers and based on ideas of the psychologist B. F. Skin-
ner, is a method of controlling behavior through positive reinforcement. By
this means, even wild animals can be trained to follow caregivers or to
cooperate in their veterinary treatment. Behavioral enrichment involves
expanding the range of choices and experiences available to the animal
