THERE is great interest in passing the London Zoo aviary on the Regent's Canal these days.
It was first de-meshed last year and is now in the process being re-meshed with a specialised rigging team hanging from its structure by the side of the waterway, Roger Fox reports.
Walk-through experience
The Grade II listed structure, designed by Cedric Price, Frank Newby and Lord Snowdon in 1962, it was the first aviary in Britain that offered visitors a ‘walk-through’ experience, bringing them closer to the birds in their natural habitat, and was pioneering in its use of a tubular aluminium tetrahedra framework and high tensile steel cables for support. (Picture of aviary in 2004 when cruising Regent's Canal.)
The specialist rigging team are ‘re-meshing’ the famous Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo, ahead of its reopening in the summer, but no longer as an aviary but a new primate enclosure.
New mesh installed
Over 200 mesh panels were first peeled away from the frame in the first stage in a 12 month restoration project led by Foster & Partners, and 3,800sqm of new mesh being installed.
It is being restored and adapted to suit some new occupants, as home for the Zoo’s Eastern black and white colobus monkeys, with a stronger more flexible stainless steel mesh replacing the original panels.