How the zoo can have a sustainable place in our urban environment against the growing welfare concerns present in our society. Zoos are both loved and despised by people. Loved for their ability to bring people closer to exotic wildlife and despises for the ethics of keeping exotic animals in captivity. The existence of zoos is more and more challenged by animal right activists, yet today a zoo can be found in almost every big city and are annually visited by millions of people, but will this be the same in the future? Although many people regard them as a primary recreation attraction, modern zoos are also valuable conservation, education, and research centres.

The research focusses finding a method for sustainable exotic wildlife exhibition within our urban environment. This is achieved by developing a Zoo Evaluation Tool, to give insight in the complex system that the zoo is and to analysis for each zoo how it is preforming on various aspects or components. The tool doesn’t propose or implies a perfect or ideal future zoo but helps to indicate what the current conditions of a zoo are. Thereby helping to formulate questions or channels manners of thinking in which directing a zoo could develop.

The zoo as a space in the urban environment and society can be dissected in three main topics; Objectives, Urban fabric and Lay-out. The objectives of the zoo can be evaluated in four aspects education, research, conservation and research, from which conservation will be of prime importance for the future zoo to be viable in or society. The urban fabric has been broken up in the aspects of edge, mixed functions and accessibility. Currently the zoo is a gated community within the urban environment, the future zoo needs to open to the urban environment to allow a mutually beneficial dialogue between city and wildlife. The lay-out of the zoo and method of exhibition tells a lot about the relationship humans have towards wildlife and nature. On macro, meso and micro this influences the animal welfare and visitor experience. The future zoo needs to allow the animal to live as free and natural as possible and offer the visitor a trip to this imported wilderness within the city.

To change the current zoo into a future zoo, based on the Zoo Evaluation Tool, guidelines and design principles have been proposed. In a case study design for the Rotterdam Zoo the tool, guidelines and design principles have been applied. By mixing zoo and urban function together and by greaten large ecozones and animal rotation structures the future zoo can find a viable place within the urban environment of Rotterdam.