2019 Snapshot:
At the Saint Louis Zoo, the goal wasn’t just to build new habitats—it was to build around life already there.
The Primate Canopy Trails project transformed part of the Zoo into a 35,000 sq. ft. outdoor environment featuring eight interconnected habitats, tunnel systems, and living trees woven directly into the animals’ experience. From the start, TWM’s role began small—just a few individual pier layouts to help construction get underway.
But the complexity of building around a living landscape quickly changed that and our team soon began to play a major role in various other aspects of the project.
Before any construction began, our team needed to conduct topographic surveys to establish a precise control network tied to the Zoo’s coordinate system, reinforcing it with additional control points, existing monument ties, and a rigorously adjusted least squares network. That framework became the backbone for every phase of construction, guiding layout decisions across the entire site.
As the project evolved, so did our involvement. TWM used 3D laser scanning to capture existing trees that would remain in place, then developed modeling of the proposed canopy structures to identify where branches needed to be carefully trimmed before construction. Construction layout was also performed on the building, piers, tunnels, and trails. It was a rare intersection of engineering and ecology—where precision wasn’t just about placement, but preservation.
In the end, the project wasn’t just about building habitats. It was about ensuring animals, trees, and structures could all exist in the same carefully designed space—exactly as intended.
