Meet the Team

Sasaki Associates in partnership with Torre Design Consortium have developed a pair of master plans for the Baton Rouge Zoo and Greenwood Community Park. These complimentary plans, produced simultaneously with overlaping rounds of public input, will guide BREC in  constructing dramatic improvements over a period of years which will fundamentally change this 660 acre public asset into a regional destination.

Our vision for Greenwood incorporates visually inspiring landscapes accessed by a new meandering park drive with new access points. This new network will produce a more cohesive park experience and improve connectivity to nearby neighborhoods. Natural surface walking trails and paved bikeways will provide access to new recreation amenities and open green spaces. Careful analysis of the site’s natural systems have informed the design of these landscape elements using the best environmental science practices.

Similarly, our Zoo has an equally ambitious vision, literally turning itself inside-out so that, after completion, we will enter the Baton Rouge Zoo through Greenwood Park. We will have a zoo within a grand park instead of a zoo next to a park. Other major zoo improvements will both provide brand new exhibits – such as pigmy hippos – and will address concerns of the American Zoological Association, allowing the Baton Rouge Zoo to regain accreditation with modern exhibits and animal care facilities.

These plans have been crafted through a public process, and the consultant team has conducted research to better their understanding ofthe site’s history and ecology so that both may be preserved, strengthened and showcased to visitors through interpretive means.

The project’s clients are BREC and BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo who are served by a broad team of professionals identified below.