Yin-Yang Shaped Panda Enclosure for the Copenhagen Zoo by BIG

Project description by BIG

To provide the pandas with as peaceful a living environment as possible and to provide the ideal conditions for mating (one of the major challenges associated with panda preservation), the enclosures have been designed to feel like “humans are the visitors in the pandas’ home, rather than pandas being the exotic guests from faraway lands.” The interiors will resemble the animal’s natural terrain, with both a dense ‘mist forest’ and lighter green bamboo forest that will allow the pandas to move back and forth depending on season and temperature – just like they do on the hilly slopes of western China.

The design of the Panda House also optimizes the human experience. Two separate levels – a ground floor with a restaurant and access to interior spaces, and an upper floor leading around a rocky slope with Nordic plantings – will give visitors a variety of perspectives into the habitat, and allow for a full sense of immersion within nature. Barriers and functional spaces are carefully hidden or integrated into the landscape, giving both guests and the pandas a natural, non-distracting viewing condition. By lifting the earth at both ends of the male and female enclosure, the yin and yang shape is created, offering an undulating landscape with direct views. In addition, the building will give unique insight into the work of the zookeepers.

The new Panda House will encompass a total of 1,250 sqm of indoor space and 1,200 sqm of outdoor space. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year, after approval of the 150 million DKK (€20 million) construction budget. The project will be completed prior to the pandas arrival in 2018.

Project description by Schønherrs

The plant will be designed as a large yin-yang shape that both make sense as color terms and Chinese reference, but which also contains a number of practical benefits to both pandas, audience and staff:

The animal seen in its natural environment. The landscape project for the new panda plant has been Schønherrs ambition to create a green, lush and "natural" landscape, the animals can stay and be seen in. The project blurs the usual barriers between the audience and animals, so the experience of the visitor will be like move through the countryside and to reside in a single plant life of the animal.

A look into the keepers' work. In the design of the project we have placed great emphasis on audience experience is varied and thought with both keepers' work and the dissemination of the panda living. On the path trajectories, the visitor will therefore not only experience the varied nature, but also have some unique view into the keepers' work.

Mountains and hills. In nature panda living in the mountainous regions in western China, and the project two hills, both the panda and the audience an experience of this original landscape

Two forests. We have worked with two different types of landscape, "cloud forest" and "bamboo forest", both of which are hallmarks of the panda's natural habitat. The two forests lie on each tray in the system. Forests account plantation and color-contrasting with each other, just like yin-yang shape and simultaneously conveys the story of the animal's walking up and down the mountainside during the year.

Animal Facility. The animal facility is designed with a strong focus on the panda being. The plant has a fine balance so that the pandas can retire and find shade, while they can be seen by the audience. The slopes have a great variety and richness of plants, rocks, climb trees and logs that the animal can unfold. Various water elements pool, streams, waterfalls and the like is also part of the animal facility, and serves both to enrichment and to cool the occupants in the summer period.

It planted landscape. It is important that the panda can find rygdække and shade to feel safe, so it planted plants should have a finished expression from the start. Trees and bamboo being booked before construction gets underway, so we are sure that both the size and the amount of trees and bamboo fit when the unit is ready to receive Denmark's first pandas.