ZOO DESIGNS INSPIRED BY NATURE
ABOUT DEARADH ZÚ
Founded in 2020; DEARADH ZÚ is a zoo design consultancy practice, which offers affordable and high-quality Masterplanning, and detailed landscape and habitat design services, to zoos and wildlife parks regardless of size or budget. A key feature of DEARADH ZÚ is that you will work with me directly, through an engaging, fun and interactive design process.
As a small child, I set myself the goal to be a leader in zoo design. I wanted to create designs that had landscape at their heart. I wanted to create fun, immersive and captivating zoo habitats, which provided opportunities for animals to ‘be themselves’. This became a reality in 2009 when I took a chance and embarked on a career in the zoo design world. Eleven years later, and after years of zoo design experience, DEARADH ZÚ was born.
OUR LOGO
DEARADH ZÚ; translates directly from Gaelic, to mean ‘Zoo Design’. I wanted the company name to celebrate my Gaelic heritage having been born and raised in Ireland. The company logo is a spotted hyena. This animal holds particular significance for me, as it highlights a key milestone in my zoo design career; spotted hyenas were the first animals I designed a habitat for. These animals went onto thrive in their environment, exhibiting natural behaviors and even mating to produce two healthy cubs. I like to think that the habitat has had some role in their thriving. Another reason for selecting the spotted hyena is its association or symbolism with a healthy ecosystem because, aside from zoo design, Rewilding is another passion of mine.
OUR LATEST PROJECT
Colchester Zoo - Project Lions
HOW DEARADH ZÚ CAN HELP YOU!
DEARADH ZÚ can create a package of design services that work for you. These services can be offered as stand-alone elements, such as a site appraisal or a complete set that may cover concept design through detailed development and implementation.
For each project, we will work hands on, in a collaborative manner, with our clients, the various stakeholders and broader design teams to develop a scheme that surpasses our clients’ visions and objectives. We work with a group of external specialists from rockwork artists, husbandry specialists, ecologists and pool specialists to create inspiring places and meet our client’s animal and human needs.
DEARADH ZÚ is also available to join both Architectural and Engineering teams as a Zoological Design Consultant, offering complete or part design services contracts.
A FULL DESIGN SERVICE!
SITE APPRAISAL
A detailed site appraisal will help to identify current site issues and current gaps or opportunities. By undertaking this exercise we can establish some ‘Quick Wins’ and produce a prioritised list of improvements to tackle.
CONCEPT DESIGN
We can offer advice and support to realise your ambitions by creating illustrative and innovative design solutions that captures and evolves your initial ideas into a comprehensive and stunning packages - this may be for a one off habitat design or part of a wider masterplanning strategy.
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
Feasibility studies are preliminary studies undertaken in the very early stage of a project. They tend to be carried out to test the proposed developments viability, as an ‘optioneering’ exercise or to support business cases.
DETAILED DESIGN
We can provide technical and detailed design support for your project. Throughout this stage we will work closely with the project design team and with various detail specialists to provide a robust package of information.
MASTERPLANNING
We can help you realise your ambitions by creating a illustrative design that captures and evolves your initial ideas into a comprehensive and stunning package for use in supporting your funding bids, or to support planning applications.
SITE SUPERVISION
Our involvement at this stage would include review of the project site works through to practical completion of the scheme. We are very hands on and can help support our clients by undertaking regular site visits, ensuring the project vision and implementation are aligned.
WHAT TYPE OF SPACES DO WE CREATE?!
DEARADH ZÚ is incredibly passionate about good animal welfare and wellness, and harnessing the power of landscape design as a tool to communicate the importance of nature. We believe that this begins on the drawing board. Each project is unique, each has its own challenges and opportunities and we tailor our design approach for each new commission.
ZOO DESIGNS INSPIRED BY NATURE
BOOK IN FOR A FREE CONSULTATION, SO I CAN GET TO UNDERSTAND YOUR PROJECT NEEDS AND YOU CAN GET TO KNOW ME A LITTLE MORE.