Southeast Asia Track Experience

Orangutans build a new bed every night and can recall over 400 food locations across their home range. At Auckland Zoo's Southeast Asia Track, these "super skills" aren't just trivia they're the entry point into a bigger story about empathy and connection between species.

At 2 hectares, Southeast Asia is the largest project in the zoo's development plan, bringing new habitats, a restaurant, and visitor facilities together at the heart of the zoo.

The interpretive journey was designed around each species' distinct traits, using sensory, hands-on moments to build empathy through recognition helping visitors see something of themselves in an animal's behaviour rather than just observing it from a distance.

This approach was shaped through workshops with zoo keepers and species experts, tested with visitors, and refined in close collaboration with Hanson Roberts Architects — integrating interpretation and architecture into a single, cohesive experience.