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To design the Oregon Zoo‘s new elephant habitat, the project team adopted a pachyderm’s perspective.

“The hardest part was just making sure in every step of the design process that we saw this through the elephants’ eyes,” said Bob Lee, the zoo’s elephant curator. “You have to put yourself in the habitat. You have to stop and say, ‘How would this be for the elephants?’ ”

Lee and other keepers helped architects figure out what would make the animals most comfortable in the $53 million Elephant Lands development. Designers also accounted for the elephants’ size, strength, intelligence and social nature, and sought to create a habitat that would give the elephants freedom of movement, encouraging them to walk more and forage for food and water like they would in the wild.

The experience enlightened SRG Partnership, which partnered with Philadelphia-based CLR Design, an architecture firm that specializes in zoo design, on the project, said Emily Dawson, a project architect with SRG’s Portland office. A crucial part of project research, she said, was contacting officials from zoos that undertook similar projects.

“The funny part of it is there aren’t standards,” Dawson said. “There isn’t a book of elephant habitat design you can look at.”

The design team considered three completely different clients: the elephants, zoo staffers and visitors, said Greg Dykstra, a principal with CLR Design. One goal, he added, was to mimic an elephant’s natural habitat.

“Our philosophy has always anchored on that notion … let elephants be elephants and do everything that they do in the wild,” Dykstra said.

Metro, which operates the zoo, set a sustainability goal for Elephant Lands to achieve at least a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver rating. Meeting LEED requirements for an efficient heating and ventilation system was tricky, zoo construction manager Jim Mitchell said.

“We kind of fall into a different category in my mind,” he said. “It’s not like building an office building or school. We’re talking about a wide-open elephant barn.”

The zoo is one of Metro’s biggest water users, Dawson said. To help reduce usage, the new elephant habitat will include a 130,000-gallon pool that will recirculate water, she said.

“The Metro sustainability goals are really stringent,” Dawson said. “We had to think about water and energy a lot.”

The new habitat will be 6.25 acres – significantly larger than the existing 1.5-acre one. To let the elephants roam, the design team planned a series of gates to separate interior and exterior spaces, Lee said. Rooms in the barn will allow elephants to separate themselves from the rest of the herd, Dykstra said.

“We want them to decide how they spend their days,” Lee said. “The entire thing is designed to be open and allow free movement.”

Timed feeding devices located throughout the habitat will let food be dropped at different times, Lee said. This will keep the elephants engaged and give them more exercise walking throughout the habitat, he said.

“We wanted to manipulate the resources to encourage more movement,” he said.

Because elephants can reach up to 24 feet on their hind legs, electrical and heating lines in the barn will be placed above that height or have mesh around them, Mitchell said. Also, all facility aspects will be reinforced, he said.

“Everything for an elephant has to be very durable,” he said. “Everything is heavy galvanized steel and has as few moving parts as possible because elephants are very curious animals. They know how to figure things out.”

Contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis, which has a Portland office, started work on the project this past June. Construction is scheduled to finish in October 2015.

Elephant Lands is one of several major Oregon Zoo projects being paid for via a $125 million bond passed by voters in 2008. Zoo officials recently issued a request for design proposals for a new education center with classrooms and meeting halls to accommodate summer camps and other educational programs, Mitchell said. Officials then plan to build a new polar bear habitat and revamp exhibits for primates and rhinos, he said.

Bond-funded project construction will likely take place at the zoo for the next five years, Mitchell said.