ZOO WORKS

In 2025, an investor invited us to design a 20,000-square-meter oceanarium and a 16,000-square-meter rooftop zoo within the Zunyi Ziyou Port urban complex . Initially, I advised the investor against building a zoo on the rooftop,because it was not suitable for conventional wildlife. However, the investor insisted on proceeding, prompting us to design a novel zoo featuring cuteness and interaction. Area A, which could be covered with soil for greening, adopted a natural-style interactive zoo focusing on heat-tolerant subtropical animals. Area B, consisting of exposed concrete, was designated as a children’s interactive petting zoo mainly featuring pets. After the zoo was initially completed in 2016, the investor hired a 70-year-old director to oversee operations. However, he strongly opposed interaction and petting, opting instead for a conventional zoo with caged and enclosed enclosures, mainly featuring cranes, deer herds, and lions and tigers. Unfortunately, these conventional wild animals he kept suffered a significant die-off within half a year. Consequently, our oceanarium operation team took over the zoo’s operations, strictly adhering to our original design for restoration and operation. The zoo reopened in May 2017 and became extremely popular, recovering all investment costs within half a year of operation. Due to the design documents for Area B of the children’s interactive petting zoo, being leaked and widely circulated in 2026, there was a surge in domestic replication and imitation, leading to a boom in investment and construction of interactive petting zoos from 2017 to 2020.