Hello, My name is Devin. I've lurked for quite some time on Zoochat, so I'm both excited and nervous to finally post! My dream is to work full-time as a landscape architect specializing in zoo design! Landscape architecture is a small profession in Canada. As of 2011, there were only 1,500 employed in Canada. Even fewer designers are lucky enough to work with zoos. I have some experience helping a private zoo design firm, but I'm hungry for more. In the meantime, I will have to subdue my cravings with ZooChat !
Welcome Devin. There are several zoo designers here on Zoohat and there are a few people who came to Zoochat with the same dream as yours and have since gotten employment with zoo design firms.
Thank you for the nice welcome Zooplantman! I have probably read hundreds of your posts and really appreciate your contributions to ZooChat! I have also browsed through your website and respect the contributions you have made to zoo design professionally, although I don't believe I've yet had the pleasure of seeing any of your projects in person.
Welcome to zoochat Devin! As of right now we actually have a member who is opening up his own zoo on July 22 and i bet he can give you some great advice!
Thank-you, Devin. Very kind. Oddly enough all my Canadian projects are not zoo related (office buildings, a park and an airport)
Thanks for mentioning me @natel12; you're much too kind. I can only offer one piece of advice: listen to the zookeepers when designing a zoo exhibit.
Listening to zookeepers is important, but understanding is key. The Zoolex presentation Playing Nice and Using your Words has some interesting insights on communication between zoo professionals and designers. The two groups have different backgrounds and use different "languages".
With all due respect to my friend Barbara Brem, I think that what her survey revealed... by asking zoo professionals and designers separately to relate their experiences ...missed what happens in the actual design process. The main stumbling block, in my experience, for keepers getting the exhibit they want is that they are not the designer's client. The Director is. The Curator is. Their priorities are broader and more complex than the keepers' are. It was never going to be about giving the keepers what they want. Agree or not, but a new exhibit is not only about listening to keepers. And in any case, they get over ruled by their bosses. Designers listen to everyone and take in what they hear. But when the initial designs are reviewed, budget, space, need for income streams, and all sorts of other things affect what is kept and what is dropped. Keepers will not get everything they want. This does not contradict Batto's advice. It just is to point out its limits.
Designers don't get everything that they want either. As Zooplantman said, they have to ultimately answer to the client, whether it be a director, curator, funders, or city officials. There are also limitations that other professionals working on the project will impose. Designers often spend considerable time and effort on initial designs that have to be changed significantly because of client feedback. That feedback can be well-founded, but sometimes it seems fallacious. Sometimes you have to accept that you're wrong and sometimes you have to make changes you're not totally comfortable with to keep the project moving forward. I think that there is probably a big learning curve for most aspiring designers as they move from classroom projects with relatively few constraints to real world projects.
In my experience the successful designers work to help the client meet their goals. We bring our experience and skills to help the client raise the bar but it is their project, not ours. I have been very impressed in meetings with colleagues who spontaneously threw out an idea that wasn't working and opened up the process to create a new idea. This is all fun but it is a business first (or it is a short-lived career). If we have to throw out a design and start over that costs studio hours. Better to try early on to capture the client's vision and flesh it out vibrantly. There will still be budget-mandated changes and cuts but the concept should be sound. Successful designers do not come to a client meeting with "my idea" or concerned with "getting what I want." I'm not the one who raised the $15million. I don't get to decide how it should be spent. If our enclosure design makes no sense to the Curator than we just wasted a lot of time and didn't do our job. I propose landscapes that will add to the concept and I hope show the client possibilities they'd never thought of. But they have to tell me whether or not it works for their goals. There's your learning curve
