Kingdoms of Artifice - Part 3: Woodland Park Zoo, Day Two.
For my second day at Woodland Park Zoo, I was able to focus on the more recent, more heavily-themed portions which have been added since the landscape immersion movement took off.
Tropical Rain Forest
According to the zoo, “this bioclimatic zone…reflects the complexity and diversity of a tropical rain forest through mixed species exhibits.” The exhibits here were installed between 1979 and 2003. Based on the level of theming, it’s fairly easy to guess the age of each exhibit.
At the entrance we find a graphic panel similar to those I found at the zoo’s other zones, with a map showing the regions represented, from South America and Central Africa to India and Southeast Asia.
The panel is framed with found wood posts and rope ties to again suggest it was made by the local population.
The Tropical Rainforest zone had theming I did not expect. I thought they’d lean into the Amazon or Central Africa vibes, but instead everything felt sort of genetically “constructed fort.” There was no bamboo used for fencing—only service access areas like you see all across the zoo. Instead they used thick logs for everything, like what Disney would feature in their Frontier areas. These are definitely the older exhibits.
There’s a clever device used at some of the vista enclosures, however, where a false thick bamboo or thick wood grid gate is fixed in a swung open position. At the Colobus Monkeys exhibit, this suggests that there are humans around who open and close this building up (though it’s actually always open). The same fixed open gates are used for the enclosure glass panes, creating the illusion that the area is actually open wide to the animals.
Wet wood limbs have been curled through the fencing in some places, where they later hardened to look like aged vines.
Other vines and trunks, however, are fake.
Habitat viewing areas have floor-to-ceiling portals, and the vertical barrier posts, naturally stained wood with rope ties, line up with the seams in the glass panels.
The glass panes of the Jaguar Cove exhibit are framed by a massive fake concrete tree. The reader rail identifies this as an “artistic simulation.” Multiple trunks come up from the floor and meet a large felled tree along the top. This is another space that suggests that human structures are continually overgrown.
There is a mixture of authentic, relocated rocks and boulders and concrete, sculpted, faux rocks. Sometimes I even had trouble telling the difference. They appear to treat both kinds with moss. Like at the Oregon Zoo, this false tree trunk is used as a planter for live ones.
The detailing, which Disney calls character plaster, can be traced back to the introduction of faux rock work to landscape immersion habitats.
One thing I’ve not commented on is that at both the Oregon Zoo and here at Woodland Park, not frequently, but occasionally, there will be paw prints and other animal tracks baked into the concrete paths. The zoo’s educational guide for this zone encourages younger visitors to pay attention:
Look near your feet. Do you see animal tracks? Follow the tracks. Can you figure out what made them? What story do the tracks tell?
It’s not nearly as involved as what you see at the Disney’s Animal Kingdom. But they are clearly using this character plaster as an imaginative teaching tool.
The opposite side of Jaguar Cove really provides the impression that the jungle canopy is steadily encroaching all around us.
The face of the indoor / aviary building is themed to appear locally built, and vines creep and crawl all over it and into the wood grids and fencing.
The Tropical Rain Forest indoor exhibit is really elaborately themed. This surprised me, as it opened in 1992, towards the tail end of the landscape immersion era. Not all theming needs to suggest human habitation; sometimes the best stuff is just faux-nature.
Faux tree trunks come up from the floor to separate the exhibits which have organic, irregularly-shaped viewing areas. Some form benches.
There is a misting which provides constant 85% humidity in an environment kept between 70 to 80 degrees. But what makes this space remarkable is the lighting.
Special theater lights with very direct, warm, orangish and yellowish throws make the entire area feel like you are at the foot of a forrest floor with sunshine streaming through the foliage and canopy above here and there.
Combined with the mist, you get dramatic beams.
It’s very cinematic, the kind of thing you’ve seen in jungle floor nature settings a thousand times. The zoo’s educational guide for this zone tells us:
As you go through the doors, you are entering the forest floor. What is it like here? Is it sunny and bright? No, it is shady—the tall trees block the sun. Only about 1% of the sunlight actually reaches the forest floor.
As the floor ramps upward, the hardscape changes to planks and bamboo rails now wrap the exhibits on the left side.
Bare green carpet covers the opposite walls; they are designed to lean on and rest.
This bridge-like treatment suggests we are ascending further up into the forest canopy, and the animals on display reflect this. It’s not unlike a treehouse.
The passages ends with the entrance to the aviary. Elaborate wood and bamboo gates frame the entrance and exit.
All aviaries have a door system resembling an airlock—you open one set, stay in the liminal space until they close, and open the second set.
They also often employ the thick clear plastic strips you see at the back of house doors at a supermarket or warehouse. But here, the treatment is completely themed.
Strong metal wires hang like doorway beads. They are covered with very thick and heavy wooden dowel pieces that clank together like wood chimes when you pass through. They feel appropriately native yet are effective at keeping the birds in.
Now the shape language shifts to a tropical island shipwreck motif.
The rope netting and wood posts here give off strong Robinson Crusoe vibes.
Appropriately, they also remind of the related Swiss Family Robinson and the film’s signature treehouse attraction at Disneyland, which opened in 1963.
The exit is treated the same at the entrance, and soon I’m outside again. Just like at Disney theme parks, signage that is required by fire and other safety codes sometimes has to break the aesthetic of the design.
It’s very easy to tell the difference between the Disney-style themed barriers…
…and the original metal pipe fencing from the early 1980s.
I mostly noticed the fencing at Woodland Park. You could track where you were and what the geographic narrative was supposed to be by the fence along the path, most anywhere within the zoo.
Humboldt Penguins Exhibit
The penguin exhibit, next to the zoo’s west entrance / exit / store, ups the ante once again with some very Disneyesque themed elements. This area opened in May 2009, and transports us to the desert coast of Peru, because not all penguins live at the South Pole.
A boat prop like this could have come straight out of Animal Kingdom. It doubles as a photo op, with crates for children to stand on. According to the exhibit’s media guide:
As you enter the exhibit, step across a school of ornamental anchovies and encounter an authentic-style Peruvian wooden fishing boat, created by the master builders at Port Townsend’s Wooden Boat Foundation. A great play-element for kids, the boat interlaces the message of local, small-scale fishing with penguins, people and conservation.
There is a processional descent through a gate as the hardscape slope downward. Presumably, this is closed at night when zoo hours have concluded.
Everything is framed by really nice, hand-painted bilingual Spanish / English murals that place us in Peru. These are examples of what Disney calls ghost graphics and story graphics. Ghost graphics are background visuals that support placemaking, and still function when not read. Story graphics can contain information about the space and the animals on display, are intended to be read, and themed to fit in with the rest of the environmental design.
Disney also calls required instructions operational graphics. These might be the height and health requirements for a roller coaster, for example, or a dining menu. Here, actual rules, like DO NOT CLIMB OVER THE WALL are combined with fictional rules that support the spatial narrative of the exhibit.
The downward grade is gradual and the path wide. I can imagine a large school group filling the space, being guided slowly forward by a docent.
The faux rock work feels very realistic.
At the end of the descent, a rusted anchor prop sits. In typical Disney fashion, the patina has been clear coated with a glaze to prevent any rust from flaking off. No scrapes or tetanus shots today.
Here is a great example of a themed story graphic. We are given some information but it is part of the overall spatial design. These graphics do not look like they were produced by the zoo designers who put up the entry panel in the Tropical Rain Forest zone. They look like they were nailed up by residents.
Here a show set, as exhibit designers call them, suggests we are at a research station, complete with weather equipment on the roof. Known as a Research Blind, in that we might see the animals but it is difficult for them to see us, the media guide describes:
Researchers study penguin behavior and work towards their protection at the guano reserve in Punta San Juan. Bringing their work to life, an interactive research blind in the exhibit recreates a typical setting for a wildlife researcher where you’ll not only get a view of the penguin colony, but also see interesting work-in-progress from a researcher.
This anemometer with the little cups spinning around is something you’ve probably seen before at a harbor.
There are a variety of educational story graphics in the space.
There are many layers of information to take in. Graphics are on clipboards as if they were drawn by the researchers.
Nature facts are presented as hand-written notes between the research staff.
Everyone has been given a name. This is typical of Animal Kingdom’s show sets. Countless pieces of graphic ephemera, props, and other small details suggest that people were here, but we somehow just missed them.
The subtle suggestion is that you are one of the scientists. This allows younger visitors in particular to playact while they observe the animals, mixing education with make-believe.
The exhibit’s donor credits is also presented as a ghost graphic to the left of the exit gate. The entire list of supporters is broken into three blocks of hand-painted lettering in both English and Spanish like the other ghost graphics murals here. The mural has been aged and distressed, and seamlessly blends with all the other exhibit’s design elements. The words are legible, but are communicated at a background level. This is a group of donors who do not feel the need to shout.
Tropical Asia: Bayan Wilds
This addition to the Woodland Park Zoo opened in May 2015, and was designed by the same firm which developed the Humboldt penguins exhibit, Studio Hanson | Roberts. Here we find a convincing, dense jungle landscape with many credible structures that provide a strong sense of place.
The main gateway didn’t appeal to me much, however. It feels more like a Las Vegas resort pool area-styled thatch roof here, with stone blocks that remind me of a Hawaiian luxury golf course or gated community entry.
Here we have the gooseneck barn lighting that is common to many themed environments. There is a light patina of weathering, but it’s subtle.
Over the uneven fence to the left I spy the first hints of a cultural presence. People appear to live here in close proximity with the wildlife.
Like the penguin exhibit, the educational moments are presented as story graphics nailed up by the locals.
Looking around, you’ll notice this is an area where people work and collect resources and also a place where wildlife lives, the exhibit’s media guide says. We are at the central plaza area, called Crossroads.
There are themed water spigots alongside modern utility connections on some of the buildings.
As the exhibit’s media guide notes, shoes have been left outside; in Malaysia shoes are typically removed before entering.
There is an interesting mix here of more modern architecture with cultural accents. I feel like I’m in a Southeast Asian jungle, but now. Not in the past.
Walking in, I find an office for biologists called the Field House.
Everything appears loose, but is affixed to the tabletop. This appears to be someone’s workspace.
Nailed down notes and graphics constitute a show set.
There is a map of the actual region where these tigers live. We are somewhere specific.
The neatest feature was the four large flat panel displays in the wall which would occasionally show tiger footage, but for most of the time functioned as a false bookshelf, complete with a rotating table fan and small bits of paper blowing in the breeze. A digital show set.
It’s really quite effective and adds to the immersivity of the space. I would presume when they are doing tiger programming here the screens can be used as part of the presentation.
More story graphics in the same style communicate information about endangered species.
The donation box looks like an antique trunk, rusted and weathered.
You see these both at real tourist destinations and within theme parks as well. So-and-so miles to here and here and here. The fins are hand-painted and realistic. It does not look like the Woodland Park Zoo installed these signs.
Across the way is the front of the house I saw the back of on my walk in. According to the media kit, a caretaker for a palm nursery lives here. The structures are supposed to stand out alerting you to the development happening in this area of the world and the threats to wildlife trying to coexist in these forests.
The themed string lights are a nice touch.
As are the farming implements mounted on the wall, which suggest that I just missed the caretaker.
Motorbike tire tracks in the hardscape show that even more people are around.
These are as well done as any of the tracks at Animal Kingdom.
Wildlife tracks are mixed with footprints.
There is a motif running throughout Bayan Wilds, that of roadway gates, open or closed. The kind you would see on off-road areas around the world; thick steel tubing with red warning paint stripes.
This animal enclosure suggests a road that can be driven on. Beyond the barrier, the hardscape continues into the habitat.
Elsewhere the gates are open.
The overgrowth shows that they are always fixed in the open position.
The hardscape suggests that people can drive into animal habitats at any time. This is a shared landscape. The theming in Banyan Wilds conveys the conservation message that people and wildlife live in the same setting, sometimes in conflict. Just like at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
A new Forest Trailhead exhibit is coming to Woodland Park Zoo in 2026, and I’m curious to see if these same kind of Disney-inspired thematic touches will be incorporated.
As Dr. George and I will assert in Kingdoms of Artifice, the contemporary zoo is an increasingly series of themed spaces which has positively affected zoo design. Themed wildlife displays close the loop on the landscape immersive model, making the visitor experience just as holistic and engaging as it has become for the animals.
