David Hancocks

David Hancocks at Woodland Park Zoo, 1979. Photo by Helen Freeman. David Hancocks (born 5 May 1941) is a British architect and designer for zoos, natural history museums, botanic gardens and nature centres, and a former zoo and museum director. Notable for overseeing the creation of the Woodland Park Zoo's revolutionary gorilla exhibit, which for the first time utilised mature trees with natural foliage merged seamlessly for both the animals and the visitors. The technique was dubbed a landscape immersion exhibit, and has become the often imitated standard for accredited zoos across the globe.

History and early career David Hancocks was born and raised in Kinver, England. After his studies at the School of Architecture, University of Bath, he was the first graduate to receive a degree from that new university: a Bachelor of Science in 1966, followed by a Masters in Architecture in 1968. Frustrated by the rigid focus on style and form in architecture, Hancocks spent two years in the architecture office at London Zoo and a further year as head of design and exhibition at Bristol Zoo, aiming to learn how to design around animal behavioral needs, hoping to apply those lessons to designing for humans. He found the problems of zoo design so challenging and so little studied he decided to devote his time to that endeavor. He had never visited a zoo before starting work at the London Zoo in 1967.

Work at the Woodland Park Zoo Gorilla ’Nina’ with baby 'Wanto' in the new exhibition habitat. Photo by David Hancocks. Silverback gorilla Kiki spent many hours most days climbing high into the trees. Photo by David Hancocks.

After writing the book Animals and Architecture in 1971, Hancocks was brought on to become the design coordinator for the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington. Hancocks hoped to take into account the physiological and psychological needs of the animals by creating a replicated version of their own environments, taking into account natural foliage and geological forms, with special consideration taken to make the indoor spaces for the gorillas acoustically pleasant and with ample natural light, allowing them to sleep under the stars and moonlight. The strategies and techniques of placing both animals and zoo visitors in the same replicated naturalistic landscape became known as "landscape immersion." Hancocks hoped that this methodology would provide better and more interesting landscapes for the animals, and encourage visitors who were experiencing the same landscape to recognise, if only subconsciously, the vital links between wild animals and their habitats, anticipating they might then come to realise that the best way to help endangered animals is to preserve their wild habitats.

The techniques were met with ample criticism from other zoos. Directors and curators were unhappy about not seeing the gorillas clearly amid the vegetation, about them being able to wander too far away and even out of sight if they chose to, and prophesied that the gorillas would kill all the vegetation. Seattle zoo-goers had a different reaction to the zoo professionals. Their behavior, like the gorillas, changed: they became more relaxed, and spent much longer observing the animals, and talking in whispers rather than the shouting and window banging that had been the norm in the Zoo's old Ape House. . To this point, Hancocks has stated his concern that zoos' persistent focus on charismatic megafauna and on individual animal species, rather than their place in ecosystems as a whole, detracts from the overall message of conservation and ecology that zoos have the potential to achieve.

Hancocks has also become highly critical of keeping elephants in captivity, and states that their breeding programs only aim to replenish a depleting zoo elephant stock and do not contribute to elephant conservation. He has been outspoken about his former employer, the Woodland Park Zoo's elephant enclosure in particular, stating that Seattle's climate and the enclosure's size are not conductive to a happy, healthy life in elephants. Hancocks is an advocate for sanctuaries in climates better suited to elephants, citing both the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Sanctuary in California, and The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee as examples of these.

Publications Animals and Architecture. 1971. Evelyn: London, and Praeger: New York

Master Builders of the Animal World. 1973. Evelyn: London, and Harper & Row: New York

An Animated Fun Fair? In, Survey of Animal Welfare. 1973. Animal Defence Society: London

Social Biology, Bioclimatic Zones, and the Comprehensive Master Plan for the Woodland Park Zoological Gardens. 1977. In, Applied Behavioral Research. Pica Press: Seattle

Animals in Circuses. 1979. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: London

75 Years: A History of Woodland Park Zoological Gardens. 1979. Parks and Recreation Department: Seattle

An Introduction to Reintroduction. 1995. In, Ethics on the Ark. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington DC.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh No! 1995. In, Ethics on the Ark. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington DC.

Gardens of Ecology. 1996. In, Keepers of the Kingdom. Thomasson-Grant: Charlottesville

Design and Use of Moats and Barriers. 1996. In, Wild Mammals in Captivity. University of Chicago

Is There a Place in the World for Zoos? 2001. In, State of the Animals. Humane Society Press: Washington DC.

A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos, and Their Uncertain Future. 2001. University of California Press. (Finalist in the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science, 2001.)

Zoo Animals as Entertainment Exhibitions, 2007. In, A Cultural History of Animals in the Modern Age. Bloomsbury: Oxford

Most Zoos Do Not Deserve Elephants. 2008. In, Elephants and Ethics: Towards a Morality of Existence. Johns Hopkins University

An Elephant in the Room: The Science and Well-Being of Elephants in Captivity. 2009. Co-editor with Debra L. Forthman, Lisa F. Kane, and Paul F. Waldau. Tufts University

Optimal Conditions for Captive Elephants. 2009. Co-author with Debra L. Forthman and Lisa F. Kane. In, An Elephant in the Room; The Science and Well-Being of Elephants in Captivity. Tufts University

Best Practices, by the Coalition for Captive Elephant Well-Being. 2009. Co-author, and co-editor with Debra L. Forthman and Lisa F. Kane. In, An Elephant in the Room; The Science and Well-Being of Elephants in Captivity. Tufts University

The History and Principles of Zoo Exhibition. 2010. In, Wild Mammals in Captivity, second edition. University of Chicago