Eliminating the glass ceiling in exchange for an insulated metal roof would mean discontinuing the dragons’ regular exposure to natural daylight. This circumstance would prove devastating to their health and well-being. In addition to considering the daylight’s positive impact on the animals, the illumination from the glass ceiling proved beneficial to the exhibit itself—specifically the natural flora of the space. To Murphy, the daylight and the exhibit features shared a symbiotic relationship that could not be disrupted.
“We also had tremendous lighting needs for our plants, so we wanted it to look like a naturalistic exhibit. So, putting an entire roof on the building could not be attained in this space.”
Soon, the original intent of the renovation grew paradoxical. While updating the enclosure and replacing the glass ceiling would drastically improve the insulation, it would ultimately eliminate access to natural daylight, leaving the animals and the exhibit worse off than before. However, allowing the space to continue existing in its current form was unsustainable. Somehow, the zoo needed to seal off the ceiling space of the exhibit while still maintaining natural daylight illumination for the Komodo dragons and plants.
These contradictory circumstances soon reached Dennis Poon, a Woodland Park Zoo architect heading the renovation project. After much deliberation, Poon determined a new insulated metal roof was ultimately necessary.
“We decided to do a new roof structure, and because we’re doing a new roof structure, we’re losing all the glass skylights we had before where we allowed daylight to come through,” he says. “We were trying to find the best way to give daylight into the exhibit for the animals because we didn’t want to lose that aspect of having that natural light connection they had before.”
A tubular solution
After extensively researching numerous options, Poon considered the idea of using a tubular daylighting device (TDD), as it could satisfy the contradictory requirements.
TDDs are domed devices installed on the roof of a building that use special lenses to capture lower-angle sunlight and reflect it into an interior space through flexible, reflectively coated tubes. The selected TDDs for the project offer 99.7 percent reflectivity; the tubes can be angled to fit almost any space and still provide bright ambient light to hard-to-reach areas. A variety of diffusers, made of modified acrylics, would allow Poon to shape and direct the light coming into the space while maintaining efficient insulation and eliminating unwanted solar glare. With this ideal solution identified, he got to work planning the integration of the device into the new roof and exhibit designs.
He started by identifying which TDD could accomplish the project’s goals.
