For Immediate Release: November 11, 2005
Como Park Visitor and Education Center - HGA Merges 21st Century With 20th Century Elegance
Minneapolis, MN - The new Visitor and Education Center for the Como Park Zoo and adjacent Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, ushers these landmark institutions into the 21st century with architecture that engages, educates and inspires. Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers, Inc. (HGA), Minneapolis, the 70,000-square-foot structure is the new front door for the city's beloved zoo, which was started with a herd of deer in 1897.
The Visitor and Education Center features a "phototropic dome" that houses a new tropical plant and animal exhibit for the public, includes "tree house" classrooms for schoolchildren, and the new center connects with Como Park's famous glass-domed conservatory with a new wing of greenhouse exhibits and a welcoming "front porch."
Respecting History with Design. Como Park is one of the top three attractions in Minnesota and the country's only free zoo, botanical garden and environmental learning center in an urban area. Since opening in 1915, the Victorian conservatory, an architectural icon located in St. Paul's Como Park, had undergone numerous renovations before landing on the National Register of Historic Places. Prior to selecting HGA, says Roberta Sladky, manager of the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, "One of my major concerns was that the historic nature of the conservatory and its place in the park would be respected. We didn't want a building that would overpower the conservatory."
Project designer Kara Hill's approach seamlessly merges the clean, modern aesthetic of the Visitor Education Center with the historic conservatory and its park setting. She achieves this, in part, through a shared materials palette of glass and steel, referencing the domed conservatory, and Kasota stone, which was used in the construction of older, existing zoo buildings located behind the new Center.
In addition, Hill's design balances the old with the new. She anchored the Center's west end with a soaring, angled, glass-and-steel "leaf" structure that complements the smooth, circular conservatory dome on the complex's east end. The two buildings bookend the Center and share similar dimensions: while the conservatory dome is 100 feet in diameter, the base of the new glass structure is 100 square feet. A ribbon of shallow ponds reinforces the building's continuity from the Victorian dome to the 'leaf' dome.
"The contrast between the historic dome and the angular Tropical Encounters structure is both striking and respectful; just what we were looking for," Sladky says.
Design and Conservation. Integrated throughout Hill's design is a common-sense approach to energy conservation realized through an acute attention to architectural detail, daylighting, siting and materials. As a result of these embedded sustainable-design strategies, the elegant public building $225 per square foot) and operates at 35 to 45 percent below the city's energy code.
For example, the older conservatory, otherwise known as the "palm dome," is famous for its gigantic palm trees. The new structure, whose crystalline form was abstracted from the shape of a leaf, houses the 10,000-square foot Tropical Encounters rainforest plant and animal exhibit. Designed into the 'leaf' is an exterior network of steel ribs and gutters that channel collected rainwater, which the park reuses to irrigate its gardens; thus, no rainwater is put into the city's overburdened storm-water system.
"We're an organization that's all about conservation," Sladky says, "so Kara's ability to blend energy efficiency into this beautiful new education building fits right in with our mission."
Design and Function. As the main entrance to the zoo, visitors enter through the south-facing Education Center via a series of wide doorways that lead directly through the building to the zoo, located behind Tropical Encounters.
Inside the main entrance is a 3,000 square-foot "front porch," a long corridor that connects the new wing of greenhouse plant exhibits to the rear of the conservatory. An ideal informal education and event space, the porch features an exterior glass wall whose panels pivot out over the reflecting ponds while the interior wall is made up of stacked Kasota limestone of various colors, with flaws and fossils intact. (This is in contrast with many architectural projects that require flawless stone of uniform color; the rejected material ends up in a landfill.) The mortarless rainscreen wall requires no future maintenance.
Displaying the fossilized remains of geological lily beds, the limestone wall corresponds with live lilies growing in the new reflecting pools outside the front porch. In addition to enhancing the aesthetic design, Hill included the shallow pools as a way to restore a passive cooling system to the site similar to those used to moderate temperatures in greenhouses during the Victorian era. As the pond water evaporates, this cool and moist air is pulled into the building through operable windows along the lower edge of the glass wall. A heat-recovery system in the building will heat water in one of the ponds, so the conservatory staff can grow giant tropical lily pads called Amazonian Water Platters, a turn-of-the-century exhibit that had been continued.
Past the front porch and inside the Education Center, the Garden Safari Gift Shop and Zobota Cafeteria are located to the east, while the new Tropical Encounters exhibit is located to the west. Visitors will see renewable cork and MDF (medium density fiberboard) covering the walls while ceilings remain uncovered to reduce unnecessary use of materials. Counters are Shetka Stone, a local product made of resin, recycled paper and fabric. The concrete floors contain a high percentage of fly ash (a byproduct of coal burning that extends and strengthens the concrete).
In creating the abstract Tropical Encounters dome, whose volume accommodates tall rainforest trees growing in the center, Hill utilized computer modeling to study the seasonal movement of light. As a result, the angles of the glass-and-steel roof were faceted to maximize winter light and minimize summer sun.
"In shaping this space for Tropical Encounters, we didn't want to compete with the conservatory dome, nor did we want to create an object," recalls Hill. "So we designed a multi-faceted structure with phototropic qualities. It resembles a leaf with its strong steel branches and veining that turns toward the sun with facets that move gently in a semi-circle northeast toward the zoo."
Moving to the second floor of the Education Center are two "tree house" classrooms with balconies that cantilever into the Tropical Encounters rainforest canopy, which is where most bird and animal activity occurs. Additional classrooms located on this level open onto a full-length deck with three rooftop gardens planted with different green-roof options.
From the deck, an exterior cantilevered stair winds down to the ground. Ipe (e-pay), a renewable and durable wood, was used for the deck planks, sliding sunscreens over the windows of the tree house classrooms, the trellis on the north side of the building and the benches throughout the new greenhouses.
Greenhouse Exhibits. To the east of the front entrance, the new greenhouse exhibits replace a formerly dark, cramped area that wasn't ADA compliant. The east end of the long "porch" opens into the first of these exhibits: a Children's Garden workshop with a skylight over a large planter and the exquisite new 1,150-square foot Bonsai Room. Inside a framework of rough steel beams, the bonsai room's sandblasted glass panels, reminiscent of shoji screens, were pegged into place with stainless-steel rods.
Adjacent to the bonsai exhibit is a series of greenhouses whose roofs cascade from the high-ceilinged, 3,700-square foot fern room down to the cantilevered orchid house. The orchid house shades the fern room from the western sun, while photovoltaic cells integrated into the fern room's glass ceiling provide the additional dappled shade ferns receive in a natural forest environment. The photovoltaics also produce the electricity for the greenhouses.
For nearly 100 years, the city-owned Como Zoo and conservatory has educated people of all ages about biodiversity and conservations The new Visitors' Education Center allows the organization to fulfill this mission through elegant architecture that educates about plant and animal life as it demonstrates resource conservation.
:: View Como Park Visitor and Education Resource Center
HGA Contact: Julie Luers (612) 758-4000 e-mail JLuers@hga.com
Media Contact: Susan Evans, Evans Larson (612) 338-6999 e-mail susan@evanslarson.com