The face of the project changes weekly at this point. Trees are being set in place. The discovery trail, a colorized concrete walk made to look like a dirt path is getting its final touches with leaves and animal feet prints stamped onto it. The asphalt roadway, with colorants and rocks mixed in to make it look like a muddy logging road, comes complete with truck tire marks (made with a pickup truck fitted with all terrain tires) and an old rundown truck, purchased at a farm in Pekin, IN, set off to the side to mimic an old wrecked logging truck. A final check of all walls is being made for smoothness. Excessive care and quality control goes into this for various reasons. One is that we don't want to leave the gorillas with any rough edges to allow them to rest a tree trunk up against and use it to climb out. Another is so they can't grab items such as inset light fixtures and pull them out. Aside from the obvious of having to replace the light, there's the more important possibility of electrocution.

So you see, zoo construction truly is like no other type of construction. We must delve into what the owner and architect want and come up with the solution to make it work. Arrasmith Judd Rapp, Associates, the architects of record and Whittenberg have been working with the Louisville Zoological Gardens for over seven years now. We are a team built on mutual respect and trust for each other.

One final note, The Islands and the African Outpost were both completed on time, with the Gorilla Forest looking to do the same. All of them had tight schedules and none of them suffered in quality to achieve those schedules. This is a testament to everyone working together as a team for one common goal. At Whittenberg, we feel all projects can be and should be run and completed in this same fashion.