Description

Creating a clear entrance and enjoyable arrival experience into Taronga Zoo with an emphasis on the natural beauty of the site.

Taronga Zoo is an iconic zoological garden in Sydney’s northern city suburb of Mosman. The Upper Entry Precinct project delivers a major entrance and car park for the zoo, which serve to restore the emphasis on the natural beauty of Taronga Zoo’s setting and resolve issues with traffic flow and people movement.

The Upper Entry Precinct is the first stage of the journey through the zoo for most visitors. Previously, visitors had to navigate the vast parking area and ticket queues before being funnelled through a ‘key-hole’ entry gate. The Upper Entry Precinct diffuses these functions into a smoothly orchestrated sequence. The design reinforces the nature of the zoo as a walled garden and allows visitors to experience their entry to the zoo as a promenade through the landscape. It achieves this via the separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic; creation of a new public space for ticketing and orientation, and the relocation of daily parking to the rear of the site, creating a landscape buffer to be used for overflow parking only on very busy days.

In addition to increased parking and new retail and ticketing areas, project elements include the refurbishment of the heritage Upper Entrance Building and Tram Shed, and the creation of new public spaces, pathways, bridges and canopies. These include the inner plaza, which is an ‘un-ticketed’ space that allows free access into the formerly exclusive zoo domain, and the outer plaza which is a civic lawn that can be shared by the local community.