Picture of new seal pool

I certainly agree with you on this point, which is where I think a lot of exhibits fall down:

I still think though that there should be room for flexibility on the approach of simulating nature - a zoo needs to provide the functionality of the animal's habitat to allow for its natural behaviour, but they so often fail to satisfactorily reproduce the visual appearance that maybe sometimes they should try another way.

I suppose it comes back to my old mantra, 'variety is the spice of life'. The UK and Europe have many zoos close together and many zoos are dependent on visitors going to more than one place. If all zoos are the same why should they bother?

What are they trying different that has not been attempted many times before? Such concrete monstrosities (to quote Reduakari) have been built and demolished many times over in the past half-century. I would simply like to see the zoo build something more natural-looking, although we'll all have to wait until the project is actually completed before finding out how closely the image in this photo represents the final design.

My point was only really that I still find it amusing (and frustrating) that there is the automatic pooh-poohing of any exhibit that doesn't set out to be a minute visual recreation of an animals habitat. See also Dudley's geladas.

I'd much rather see relatively cash-strapped zoos like Dudley and (I think we can assume from the slow progress here) Saarbruecken make cheaper, less-naturalistic improvements that improve the animals' living conditions than wait years for funds that will probably never arrive to make flashy immersion exhibits (which Dudley had been doing for some time - ironically as soon as they stopped waiting they've been given some but such is life...).

As I say, the specific merits of this seal pool are up for debate, but I still don't think they should be done down for not choosing to spend their money on flashy fake rock.

Just to enter this debate a little, yes it is nice for a zoo to have natural exhibits (I prefer the typical rainforest, desert, savannah etc), but I think the point is it isn't essential. It's a case of looking at each zoo and each exhibit to say what is right, as it can vary. For example, I wouldn't expect Howletts or Port Lympne enclosures at any of the big American zoos, but then again the situations are far different.

British zoos don't get millions of pounds from the government to build a big immersive exhibit, so we have to forget about any ideas of grandiour as we have a little thing called 'budgets'. To put it this way:

Your zoo has 5 highly outdated exhibits that are considered unsatisfactory for the animals, and has a budget of £1 million a year for improvements (I'm working with easy numbers, maths isn't my strength). So, you can either build one big naturalistic enclosure a year for £1 million, leaving one of your species in terrible conditions for the next 4 years until it's their turn, or you can build 5 above-adequate exhibits for £200,000 each, it would be done within one year, and suddenly you have no outdated/poor exhibits. You have no natural exhibits, but it doesn't matter because at least the animals are no longer going to get ill/bored/stressed etc.

In short, immersive/naturalistic exhibits are the best, but too many zoos that think this and strive for this have areas of the zoo neglected as they spend all of their money on one part of the zoo.

Several points here:

• This is only an architect's drawing. Goodness knows what it will really look like - although the evidence of the building site http://www.zoochat.com/853/building-site-new-seal-pool-244724/ does confirm that there will be an almighty mound at the exhibit's centre.
  
• I'd like to think that things like shade would have been thought about - but I'm not so sure that the evidence supports this. Even the crummy current seal pool has a sort of temporary gazebo thing that is put up in summer time.
  
• I wholly disagree with Red Uakari and Snow Leopard's arguments that naturalistic is, by definition, better. To paraphrase the great folk-singer Steve Earle, there are only two kinds of zoo exhibits - good ones, and bad ones. In the case of seals, in particular, naturalistic really would be superficial in the extreme - not many seas are as clear as the water will hopefully be in this zoo exhibit, for example. I quite like a bit of modernism, actually - if it is suitable from a husbandry point-of-view. Will this be? We'll see....
  
• Not sure that the financial analysis stacks up, Javan Rhino. I have no idea how much this is costing, but it won't be cheap - things involving water, and filtration, and underwater viewing, and earth-moving on a grand scale, rarely are. Meanwhile, drills (in particular) and mandrills are kept in awful exhibits at this zoo - while there are some great small valleys that could be enclosed by electric fences to makes wonderful (but not very naturalistic) enclosures for them - at, I would think, a fraction of the price.

I see your point, but I didn't explain it very well. What I meant was it was likely cheaper to build this as the plans show, than it would be to build a naturalistic enclosure for the same species. Of course it would be cheaper to make a Drill exhibit, but would there be a cheaper way of doing a good, functional seal pool?