Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/331457
Journey to Churchill – Assiniboine Park Zoo by Ti any Sloan B uilt in 1904, the Assiniboine Park Zoo is one of Canada's oldest. But as of July 3, it will also be Canada's newest – and house the world's most innovative and engaging polar bear exhibit to date. At over 100 years old, there was a desire to redevelop the zoo to ensure it re�lected today's modern zoo standards. "It wasn't about �ixing a few things up, it was about transforming the whole zoo space," says Margaret Redmond, president and CEO of Assiniboine Park Conservancy. "So we asked ourselves, 'What can we do better than anyone else?'" The answer: Pro�ile Manitoba and Canada's North – with a focus on polar bears, of course. With big dreams and a $90-million budget to bring them to life, the Conser- vancy started designing in 2009. "We wanted to create something unparal- leled – this had to be the best of its kind in the world," says Redmond. And it is. Journey to Churchill, the 10-acre � lagship exhibit of the rein- vented Assiniboine Park Zoo, will set a new standard for polar bear exhibits worldwide. Visitors traverse three dis- tinct zones on their journey from the prairie landscape of Winnipeg to the recreated town of Churchill, the self-pro- claimed "polar bear capital of the world" on the subarctic shores of Hudson Bay. Visitors begin in Zone One, the Wapusk Lowlands, showcasing the vastness of the tundra and the caribou, snowy owls, muskoxen and Arctic foxes that live there. Zone Two, Gateway to the Arctic, is the primary viewing point for the stars of the show. Visitors can watch polar bears and seals swimming in their habitat from inside a 10-foot-wide clear acrylic underwater tunnel. The domed Aurora Borealis Theatre, show- ing a �ilm about the Arctic and the First Nations people who live there, projects a 360-degree horizon and the Northern Lights above. Finally, visitors arrive at Zone Three, the Churchill Coast. Here, a facade resembling the town of Churchill transports visitors to the northern fron- tier and more wildlife sightings. Look- ing straight into their habitat through the 50-foot window wall in the 150-seat Tundra Grill, visitors have the unique opportunity to eat their lunch with a view of the polar bears. While four polar bears currently reside at Journey to Churchill, it will eventually be home to between eight and 12. The project also included the design of the new International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, which houses research and exhibit space focusing on climate change and its impact on polar bears. As well, the facility houses a polar bear transition program that allows the zoo to receive and re-home injured or orphaned cubs that would otherwise die if left in the wild. To create an immersive experience for visitors, the design team �irst needed to immerse themselves in the reality of it. "A small group of us went up to Churchill and the shores of Hudson Bay, driving around in the snow and ice of the subarctic and looking at polar bears for four days," explains Michael Hamm, CEO of prime consultant The Portico Group, a Seattle-based architecture and design �irm specializing in informal learning facilities such as zoos, aquariums and museums. "Our mission was to translate that experience into an exhibit." In order to create an authentic expe- rience, says Hamm, a key aspect of the design was the lack of visible barriers. Although all the resident animal species are separated from human visitors and from each other, the design team used elements such as layered exhibits and �ive-metre hidden moats to hide that fact. The result is a "landscape immer- sion" exhibit, in which visitors share the same landscape (though not the same physical area) as the animals. "As much as possible, we tried to create the illu- sion that you're just looking at land, sea and sky," says Hamm. The "landscape without barriers" design really heightens the visitor expe- rience, adds Doug Hanna, partner with Number TEN Architectural Group. But achieving that requires carefully con- trolled sightlines into the exhibits, with COURTESY ASSINIBOINE PARK CONSERVANCY JUNE 2014 /91 Journey to Churchill – Assiniboine Park Zoo p.90-93Journey to Churchill.indd 91 14-06-03 10:31 AM