Grant Associates designs African Forest habitat for Bristol Zoo Project
A new immersive gorilla habitat designed by Bath based landscape architects Grant Associates has opened at Bristol Zoo Project, transforming an area of mature woodland into a Central African forest landscape for animals and visitors.
Granted planning permission by South Gloucestershire Council in 2024, the African Forest experience forms a key early phase of the wider landscape-led masterplan for Bristol Zoo Project, which Grant Associates has been developing with Bristol Zoological Society since 2021. The wider masterplan — which gained planning approval in 2025 — is transforming a 136-acre site near Cribbs Causeway into a conservation-focused zoo where animals and visitors are immersed within naturalistic landscapes.
The African Forest habitat becomes the new home for the society’s troop of critically endangered western lowland gorillas. In recent weeks, the gorillas have begun to explore the external habitat for the first time, using the mature trees, varied terrain and planting structure in ways that closely reflect natural behaviours. Early observations have seen individuals climbing, foraging and moving confidently through the landscape, demonstrating how the design supports both physical activity and psychological wellbeing.
Grant Associates led the masterplan and landscape design of the habitat from concept through to planning, detailed design and delivery, working alongside architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS) and engineering firm Momentum along with the wider consultant team.
Designing landscapes for animals demands a different way of thinking about place. The landscape must support animal welfare first and foremost, while also creating meaningful experiences for visitors. At African Forest, the aim was to create a landscape that as it continues to mature and evolve, will create an immersive environment for the primates with a strong forest character at its core, rather than a designed exhibit — somewhere the gorillas can explore and feel secure, and where visitors sense they are entering the animals’ world.
A forest island within woodland
The habitat sits within a former arboretum on the Bristol Zoo Project site. The design approach focused on retaining and integrating as many of the existing trees as possible, so they were used to shape and inform the design of the exhibit, and in doing so, provide a mature setting similar to the sheltered forest conditions that these gorillas would experience in the wild.
The resulting concept is deliberately simple, comprising a contained forest island surrounded by water. The six-metre-wide moat provides the primary containment strategy, creating clear views into the habitat while reinforcing the natural forest setting. The geometry of the moat is informed by the positions and extents of the root protection areas and tree canopies. Containment is achieved through a carefully detailed kingpost wall with integrated viewing windows that snakes its way between the roots and canopies of the trees.
The Gorilla House, designed by FCBS, is embedded within the woodland edge rather than presented as a standalone structure. The location and footprint of the building has been designed to avoid a number of trees, in particular a 150-year-old horse chestnut tree within the island.
Translating an African forest
Planting is central to the character of the landscape. Rather than attempting to replicate Equatorial Guinea directly, the design translates the structure and atmosphere of an African forest into species suited to the UK climate.
The planting palette balances a number of needs: species that mirror the arboretum setting, vegetation that is safe for gorillas while remaining resilient to browsing and visitor-side planting that creates an immersive woodland environment which in time will provide a layered canopy, filtered views and seasonal interest.
Landscape as habitat infrastructure
Visitor circulation follows a perimeter route around the forest island, with viewing points positioned to frame moments across the water.
Shelters and viewing structures inspired by Central African vernacular forms were developed so that buildings and landscape read as a cohesive environment.
Across the site, structures are finished in a calibrated “invisible green” to allow architecture and infrastructure to recede into the woodland backdrop.
As the landscape establishes, the habitat will continue to evolve: understorey planting will mature, water edges will soften and the retained woodland canopy will deepen the sense of a living forest.
Project team
Client: Bristol Zoological Society
Landscape Architect: Grant Associates
Architect: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Civil and structural engineers: Momentum
Planning consultant: Avison Young
Project Managers: Ridge
Ecologist: Clarkson Woods
Arborist: Wooton Tree Consultancy