Cleveland Metroparks Zoo - Australian Adventure

LOCATION: Cleveland, OH

Merit Award, American Society of Landscape Architects - Ohio Chapter

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo master plan proposed replacing the zoo’s existing farm exhibit with a new facility that would exhibit plants and animals from Australia. The result was an eight-acre exhibit featuring three major components—Kookaburra Station, Wallaby Walkabout, and Koala Junction.

A 55-foot high Yagga tree creates a unique setting for children’s interactive play. Other features include:

•a nineteenth-century ranch with barns

•contact yards

•camel rides

•demonstrations

•a rodeo-style amphitheater

•Wallaby Walkway, where kangaroos, wallabies, and wallaroos roam among visitors

•a viewing area for koalas, in both outdoor and indoor display areas

•the lorikeet aviary, where guests may feed and interact with free-flying birds

The Australian Adventure is an immersion-style exhibit. Plants, pavement materials, fences, and buildings all were developed thematically to create the “land down under.