Animal Architecture

Tom Dyckhoff explores the way we design and build for animals.

What do our zoos and menageries say about the changing ways we think about animals - and about ourselves?

Zoos are weird places: miniature other worlds designed for non-human occupants.

They're also astonishing artefacts, little cities of architectural fantasy of amazing diversity; some of the greatest architects in the world from Lutyens to Norman Foster have built animal houses.

But how do we, and have we, designed for animals? What kind of architecture results? What are these human interpretations of what we think animals want? And how has our understanding of the natural world changed the kinds of environments we make for them?

Featuring ZSL London Zoo director David Field; writer, zoo historian and former zoo director David Hancocks; architect Michael Kozdon; professor of Environmental Science and Philosophy Dale Jamieson; and CEO of Dudley Zoological Gardens Peter Suddick.

Producer: Martin Williams

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2014.

Tom Dyckhoff explores the way we design and build for animals.