Victorian Sites
Kubu River Hippos’ Exhibit, Werribee Open Range Zoo
introduction / overview / images / location /Projects
Landscape Architect: Urban Initiatives Pty
LOCATION: Werribee Open Range Zoo, K Road Werribee.
SUMMARY
The problem: Traditional re-circulating aquatic exhibits within Zoo environments are vast consumers of energy, chemicals, water and management resources.
The answer: To implement a land management solution and construct an exhibit that uses natural processes and biological systems to provide an ecologically based filtration and purification system that is sustainable and provides a healthy living environment.
The $6.4 Million Hippo Marsh Exhibit reflects a new approach in the world of zoological design and includes a unique merging of constructed ecology, engineering and design with a key elements being the exhibit pools, filtration wetlands and hydraulic and treatment systems for Kubu River Hippos’.
This significant land management project not only challenges the traditional form of a Hippo exhibit, but the whole way it presents the critical issues to the public, engages with the visitor, cares for it’s constituents, and most importantly establishes a new approach to ‘sustainability’ within the exhibit.
Urban Initiatives role in the development of ‘Kubu River Hippo’s’, Werribee Open Range Zoo, was to translate a biological model for the filtration system into a design than could be implemented on the Werribee site, linked to the existing site hydrology and integrated with the exhibit experience. This role required understanding of the interpretive objective, and the landscape character and habitat of the featured ‘Okavango Delta’ to enable the integration of the technical and land management parameters into the design process.
The wetland treatment system implemented in the project includes open, interconnected waterbodies that have been manipulated to resemble the flood plain of the Okavango delta of Botswana. The exhibit design incorporates a reticulated natural filtration system or a wetland treatment system. All water from the three Hippo Ponds is filtered through the wetland system to remove suspended solids, trap and physically remove organisms and decrease nutrient levels. The total capacity of the system including the wetlands is approximately 4.5 million litres. The use of such a system is not known to have been previously been applied in a Zoo exhibit.
SOME FACTS AND DATA:
There is a direct correlation between recirculation/recycle rate and energy use. As an example a relatively small exhibit pool (such as San Diego Zoo) with a 757 000 litres recirculating pump and filtration system typically consumes 2000 KwHr/day. The 2.25 MgL Hippo pools recirculate typically using only 90KwHr/day (our system uses less than 1/20th of the energy but is three times larger).
A total of 71,936 plants were used on the project 69,312 wetland plants.
Early testing of the old Hippo farm dams, revealed levels of E.coli in the magnitude of 4,000-40,000 organism per 100/ml. Bacteria soup!
The concentrations in the new exhibit are far lower with the concentrations at the outlet of the UV disinfection system being on most occasions less than 100 organisms/100mL.
Contact Urban Initiatives
In Melbourne: 143 Franklin Street Melbourne 3000 Victoria Australia
Telephone: +61 3 9329 6844 Facsimile: +61 3 9329 6336
http://www.urbaninitiatives.com.au
introduction / overview / images / location /Projects
2008
