Kay Elliott Architects were selected after a design competition to provide the Zoo with a new exhibit for seals and penguins.

Kay Elliott Architects’ solution to the zoo brief was to provide a fully immersive experience for visitors to the exhibit enabling visitors to follow a route through and around a reconstructed rocky coastline containing beaches and coves and places for the penguins to nest, linked to a similar route around coastline where seals are able to bask above water. The visitor proceeds seamlessly to below-water level and is provided with many opportunities to view the seals and penguins below water level. The primary aim was to reproduce a natural habitat and to eliminate the inclusion of man-made features such as buildings and plant etc.

The penguin site is covered with a net to prevent wild sea birds from stealing the penguin food.

The exhibit won the Zoo Animal Welfare Award in 2000 which was presented by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. This was the second year in a row the award was given to a Kay Elliott Architects’ design.