Comments on: In Progress: Elephant House / Foster + Partners

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:51:02 +0000

I was pretty curious about the welfare of the zoo elephants after reading this. I found some images of the outside enclosure to be very encouraging. The grounds look rather sparse to me though. The exhibit is still new, perhaps more vegetation will be added.

Considering the previous structure, this one looks like quite an improvement.
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/foster/elephant2/elephant2.html
http://nordictravel.co.uk/2008/07/new-elephant-house-at-copenhagen-zoo.html

By: mirales

mirales — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:02:28 +0000

any tree to put in? any window on this beauty dome to OPEN?

it is like keeping prisoner on the concrete floor and openining key hole size opening over his head telling “but he has day light and breeze of fresh air!”…

what animals did to people to deserve prisoning in ZOOs?
and what is better in this space than in anyother zooooooooooooooooo? not clear Sir.

By: Maia Jane

Maia Jane — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:02:20 +0000

Do they have any opportunity to play outside? do they have any vegetation?
Having seen elephants in the wild in India, and in Africa, I can tell you they do not live in sand-boxes. There are trees and grass and SPACE. If this was their nighttime enclosure I could cut them some slack.
Someone should realize that there are specialists who design enclosures, you shouldn’t hire an architect to design a habitat for an animal, not only is it unethical, you are producing something for humans and not for the animals.

By: The Elaphant House- Foster an Partners COPENHAGEN, Denmark « archiDE

The Elaphant House- Foster an Partners *COPENHAGEN, Denmark* « archiDE — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:35:45 +0000

[...] from fosterandpartners More pictures on [Archdaily and fosterandpartners] Filed under: ARCHITECTURE | Tags: [...]

By: David

David — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:04:33 +0000

poor elephants :D

By: effe

effe — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:22:23 +0000

i agree with keith.. plus, seing the scale of the user (in this case an elephant) it looks like is not an space where he can feel in an armonic proportion between the size and the scale. yes it feels big, but it looks like it’s made for a human of the size of an elephant but not for an elephant (someone who lives without restrictions to the sky and sides)… the proportion of a human scale obviously changes when it comes to another animal of its size…. i dunno it feels like he is in a lab or something… Foster is still very far from being able to build something like a natural environment and i think no one can, he should’ve done a negative of this building… instead of a big mass, something that would’ve been like an open space.. maybe he shold’ve done bridges or something like that, for the visitors (obviously with an excelent design) and leave the rest like a real natural environment… i dunno but that’s what i would’ve done for this comission and i think it could’ve been a better solution to this “problem”

By: Keith Lindsay

Keith Lindsay — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:39:22 +0000

What a horror. Architects pretending to understand what elephants need out of life, and coming up with a stark, bare, display case. The nice whirly glass roof cannot disguise the fact that this is just another collector’s box, showing unsuspecting visitors what wild animals look like when their habitat is stripped away and they have no place to hide their loss of self-respect. Shame on Foster et al, for not thinking about what they were doing when given this commission.

By: Red Links 26/05/08 : Alexia Golez

Red Links 26/05/08 : Alexia Golez — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:52:53 +0000

[...] Nellie has a nicer house than yours and mine put together. [...]