Delight.

HONOURABLE MENTION ORANG-UTAN ENCLOSURE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA ARCHITICT IREDALE PEDERSEN HOOK ARCHITECTS

Named after an Indonesian phrase meaning 'man of the forest', orang-utans are the largest of the tree-dwelling great apes and one of our closest biological relatives. But the destruction of their havitats by logging, mining, road building and forest fires means that the species is now seriously endangered. Sumatran orang-utans are under particular pressure and face extinction in the wild within the next five to ten years.

Perth Zoo is a world leader in the captive breeding of Sumartan orang-utans, with 24 born there since 1970. With its jolly bricolage of climbing and swinging apparatus, this new enclosure by Iredale Pedersen Hook might look like a children's playground, but is intended to create a stimulating (and robust) environment for highly intelligent and physically dextrous animals. Real trees would be destroyed by the orang-utans (who are six to ten times stronger than adult humans), so instead an artificial forest of nesting platforms, shading devices and rope vines forms the next best thing to nature. C.S.

Architect

Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects, Perth

Photographs

Shannon McGrath