Jonathan McLoughlin, a zoo designer, chartered landscape architect, and director of Dearadh Zú, a zoo design consultancy practice, has contributed significantly to the zoo industry in the UK and abroad.
He has worked with several multidisciplinary practices, designing and delivering some of the UK’s largest and most forward-thinking zoo projects. These include the £50m Yorkshire Wildlife Park Masterplan expansion, his involvement in the £26m Chester Zoo ‘Grasslands’ development, and the design lead role on the £19m Twycross Zoo Orangutan NSCC development.
He established Dearadh Zú, which translates as ‘Zoo Design’ in Gaelic, in 2020. His team blends architecture, zoo landscape design, horticulture, and sustainability, and they have established themselves and Dearadh Zu as leaders in the zoo design sector.
McLoughlin’s most recent projects include the Colchester Zoo Lion Project, an immersive landscape-led development designed around the concept of the African Kopje landscape. A unique feature of this project is using the lion house roof as a landscaped area for lions to access, providing enhanced visitor viewing opportunities. He has also delivered two projects with Hertfordshire Zoo: the Native species trail, which celebrates UK biodiversity and conservation, and the recently opened Gibbons Song of the Forest, a mixed species immersive Gibbon habitat, another UK first.
Inspired by the history and evolution of zoo design and with a clear eye on the sector’s future, Jonathan McLoughlin has devoted his career to creating high-quality, immersive zoo habitats. His landscape-led approach to design helps create environments that offer memorable experiences for guests whilst ensuring wellness-inspired habitat design principles.
He believes zoo designers play a critical role in creating zoo habitats that demonstrate the interconnected relationships between animals, plants, and habitats, promote sustainability through design, and ensure that zoo habitats offer choices and opportunities to express natural behaviours. He believes that once these basic design principles are implemented, zoos have the power to truly capture visitors’ attention and raise awareness of conservation and biodiversity loss.