Bosses at London Zoo have handed over the reins to our youngest visitors to help steer the design of our newest experience: ZooTown.
The hands-on role play experience will immerse our youngest visitors in the huge world of London Zoo – which as part of our global conservation charity ZSL, has much more going on behind the scenes than many realise.
Children will be able to treat poorly animals at the Vet Hospital, fight germs in the Science Lab or design the perfect animal habitat in the Construction Zone. ZooTown will show how everyone – no matter their passion or chosen career – can contribute to conservation
Our supporters aged between five and 10 were invited to take part in two workshops held at London Zoo, with the mini-experts invited to feed back on their favourite role-play costumes (the faster the animal, the better apparently…), how easily they could play with some of the equipment and tools, and even helped choose road names for the mini-town.
Prototype of props, including the town’s ice-cream cart and the heavy-duty rubber gloves used by wildlife health experts, were rolled out for the junior critics to play with, while ZooTown’s design team observed what they were drawn to, and which elements needed a tweak or two.
ZooTown Design Lead, Natalie Latham said: “ZooTown is such an exciting new experience to work on, but we wanted to make sure we were getting feedback from our most important audience – the children.
“Not everyone who visits realises that London Zoo is part of ZSL, a global conservation charity, so we’ve designed a vibrant miniature town that represents all of the goings-on, where our youngest visitors can try out some of the roles that make our global conservation work possible.
“ZooTown gives us an amazing opportunity to show our youngest visitors to London Zoo how everyone at ZSL – be they working in the Zoo café or monitoring animal populations in remote forests – is a conservationist, and they can grow up to be one too.”
ZooTown will open at London Zoo in Autumn 2025, pre-booking will be required, and ZSL’s Gold Members will get free entry.
