Chester Zoo prepares for £30m Islands project with new site

Islands has been designed by German architects Dan Pearlman Group and will be realised by engineering company Laing O’Rourke.

It is set to open in Spring 2015 and will recreate the environments of six South East Asian islands.

The previously unused 50,000m² space in Chester Zoo’s estate will look to recreate the islands of the Philippines, Bali, Sulawesi, Papua, Sumba and Sumatra.

Visitors will cross bridges, climb aboard boats, pass buildings which have been built in the style of the islands they represent and get close to tigers, crocodiles and orangutans.

The site comprises a fly-through video giving an idea of scale and an interactive map, which provides further information about the islands and animals.

It has designed to be responsive across different devices and will be used by Chester Zoo as a hub for digital marketing, social media engagement and email alerts. There is also video content, competitions and a news section.

Code Computerlove was appointed in 2013 to the project and has been working with Chester Zoo for four years.

The Islands project is the biggest zoo project in UK history, according to Dan Pearlman Group’s chief executive Kieran Stanley. He says: “The challenge for us as architects was to create a holistic seamless visitor experience while integrating 16 different buildings and facilities along a 1.5KM series of paths through 60,000m2 of jungle landscape with behavioural enrichment features for the 13 different endangered animals’ species that will find a new home here.”