Minnesota Zoo Treetop Trail
Apple Valley, Minn.
Specialized construction
Region: Hell Half west
Sent by: PCL construction
Owner: Minnesota Zoo
Lead design company: Snow Kreilich Architects
General contractor: PCL construction
Civil Engineer: Barri Engineering
Structural Engineer: Meyer Borgman Johnson
MEP Engineer: Food Engineering
The monorail general of the Minnesota Zoo was disabled in 2013, but the rails installed in 1979 remained as a relic of a passing age of general transport, to Barr Engineering and Snow Kreilich Architects reimaginated the route as a Treetop Trail.
Ska designed the longest pedestrian trait loop in the world (1.25 miles) to transform the old monorail system into a walking path. The road is at least 8 feet wide for all its length, but it has 22 times that extend the width to 14 feet in some places. The project adds 70,000 square meters of nine space to the zoo, which PCL installed at the height.
Photo courtesy of Corey Gaffer, Corey Gaffer Photography
“When treated at any time we work above six feet, it does not matter if it is in the air of six feet or sixty feet, we need harnesses of the full body and link when we are working so high above the ground,” says Michael Osowski, PCL’s main project manager. However, a kit of parts that used prefabricated trail modules allowed the crew members to work at height without having to tie.
)[Modules included] All the framing and everything. ” Osowski says, and “manufactured, assembled and then sent to the workplace in these 20 -foot sections and we were able to install the handrail on the ground, so it was completely safe.”
The Treetop Trail of Minnesota Zoo offers visitors a view of most of the 500 -hectare zoo.
Photo courtesy of Corey Gaffer, Corey Gaffer Photography
The sections were dragged into the sky, and then the PCL crews were able to place them at their final rest location and connect them to the existing steel frame of the monorail lanes. Once the roof, electric, lighting and other trades were placed, they could do their job in a much more secure way. A sub -compact tractor with rubber wheels, capable of moving up to £ 30,000, was built in existing lanes to help material deliveries, workers’ transport, push sections in place and other tasks.
PCL used a phase approach, dividing the path into four sequences to maximize efficiency, construction of sequences, consider the daily routines of zoo animals and avoid obstacles.
