Listening to what clients want in a new facility is standard practice for the architects at LEO A DALY. It’s not everyday, however, your clients are eight primates called bonobos. To design one of the world’s most innovative facilities to advance the cognitive studies of great apes, the renowned architectural firm did what they saw to be the obvious – listen to the language of the bonobos.

“Having a primate as a client makes the designers listen harder,” says Lloyd Meyer, managing principal of the DALY firm. “When you are working on an office building, hospital or airport someone can say, ‘runway’ or board room’ and you know exactly what they are talking about. When you ask a great ape about ideal ‘living quarters’ you have to have a long conversation to determine their needs and desires.”

The primate’s new 230-acre home, located on the site of a former sand and gravel quarry on the southeast side of Des Moines, was designed after careful study. The process included interviews with the apes that communicate using electronic touchscreens that display abstract symbols, or lexigrams, that represent various words.

The firm’s mission was to blend imagination with innovation and intelligence at Great Ape Trust of Iowa. The environment needed to be conducive to research and a retreat where the apes could interact with one another, explore their independence and thrive in an environment that replicated both their natural habitat and facilities where they lived in the past.

Although architects around the world have designed habitats for dozens of animal species, no one had ever attempted the challenge of creating a facility like this one.

The DALY firm is accustomed to challenging and unusual projects. DALY has cemented its reputation as one of the country’s top architectural firms with its work designing airports and air force bases, hospitals, college libraries, the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., and Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles, a majestic Catholic church commissioned by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that was built on an earthquake fault line and is expected to last for 400 years.

Zoos are often designed to replicate the natural habitat of bonobos, but don’t necessarily consider the superior cognitive skills of apes, one of the many challenges presented to the design team, Meyer says.

To arrive at design solutions, the architects tossed out any pre-conceived notions of how a room or space should look and, instead turned to the apes for design guidance. The ideal facility would be a haven where the apes wouldn’t feel confined. Yet, it needed to be secure enough to make the apes feel safe.

Bonobos are very sociable creatures and thrive when spending time together. All research at Great Ape Trust is voluntary, so the new building was designed with high-tech electronics that actually let the apes have a say in who is admitted into the building and decide for themselves how much research they want to be involved in from day-to-day.

In addition, the rooms at the center had to be designed so that video cameras could send images via the Internet to interested primate researchers around the world.

Great Ape Trust Founder Ted Townsend also wanted the structure to be as “green” as possible which meant using sustainable materials, incorporating energy efficiencies and melding into the natural surroundings. The environmentally-friendly design incorporated temperature-controlled radiated floors, a heating and cooling system that draws water from a 30 acre lake on the campus and a sewage system that employs restored wetlands for anaerobic control of waste.

“We emphasize the creative process. It’s who we are and how we work,” Meyer says. “A successful project is one that inspires those who experience it and enriches life. Great Ape Trust is one of those places.”

Established in 1915, LEO A DALY is an internationally recognized planning, architecture, engineering and interior design firm. LEO A DALY has completed complex projects in more than 50 countries, all 50 states in the U.S., the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories. The firm’s clients represent nations, local governments, corporations, college and universities, industry, and non-profit institutions. LEO A DALY, with 16 offices worldwide, is consistently ranked among the ten largest architecture/engineering and interior design firms in the United States.

Great Ape Trust began as the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary in early 2002. In June of 2003, work crews began developing the former sand and gravel quarry near the Des Moines River. Located about five miles southeast of downtown Des Moines on nearly 230 acres of lowlands, river forest and lakes, Great Ape Trust of Iowa will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape -- bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans -- for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.

Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing unique educational experiences about great apes. Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and is certified by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). To learn more about Great Ape Trust of Iowa, go to www.GreatApeTrust.org.