Transforming a defunct monorail into an elevated trail was an exercise in creative friction.

By Timothy A. Schuler

For some designers, a zoo may not have the same appeal or design potential as, say, a postindustrial site. But for the Minneapolis-based designers at TEN x TEN Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, a project to repurpose a former monorail at the Minnesota Zoo as a 1.25-mile-long elevated walking path was as rich as any historic site.

“We really saw this as a cultural landscape. We found these logs that the monorail drivers would post. We were getting into monorail design. Those are the kinds of things that we get obsessive about,” says Ross Altheimer, ASLA, a founding principal at TEN x TEN, which collaborated with Minneapolis-based Snow Kreilich Architects on the project.

Situated 20 miles south of Minneapolis in Apple Valley, the Minnesota Zoo has a landscape pedigree. Opened in 1978, the zoo was designed by Roger Bond Martin, a founder of the University of Minnesota’s landscape architecture program. With 500 acres of naturalistic environments and the elevated monorail, Minnesota’s “zoological gardens” were a departure from more conventional zoo design at the time. “They wanted the animals to be in a natural setting, and so the scale of this thing is huge,” Altheimer says.

When the monorail closed after 34 years in operation, the future of the elevated rail line was an open question. A visit to the High Line in New York gave John Frawley, the zoo’s president and CEO, the idea to convert it into a trail. Following a 2016 feasibility study and successful fundraising campaign, the zoo selected the Snow Kreilich team through a competitive bid process.

The final design repurposes the monorail line to create an elevated walkway that takes visitors over animal enclosures, across lakes, and through woodlands. Accessed through a variety of new and repurposed touchdown points, the trail is divided into four sections with interpretive elements that highlight different ways of connecting with nature, such as through scientific observation or creative inspiration. (TEN x TEN also served as a consultant for the interpretation and wayfinding.)

To minimize disturbance to the animals and existing ecosystems, the trail armature was designed as a series of four- and 20-foot modules,  which were constructed off-site, lifted onto the monorail line, and pushed into place by a reconstituted maintenance car.

Snow Kreilich and TEN x TEN are frequent collaborators, and yet members of both teams say the project blurred the lines between disciplines to an unprecedented degree, partly because of the project’s commencement during the pandemic. The intensive design process wasn’t always without conflict. “A lot of times we talk about collaboration as this natural thing where [everything] is rainbows and butterflies. But sometimes there are moments of tension,” says Egle Vanagaite, ASLA, the director of impact at TEN x TEN.

Altheimer recalls “extensive conversation” about how to incorporate rest areas and interpretive points along the trail. “In their mind, it was basically a line that would thicken [in places]. And we’re like, well, no, because the whole logic of this thing is about the monorail, and actually, they have these little platforms and switches,” he says. “You can’t just apply a language— I mean, you obviously could, but it made less sense to us.”

Mary Springer, an associate principal for Snow Kreilich, says these moments ultimately benefited the consensus-driven approach to the project. But they’re only possible when teams have mutual trust. “What’s encouraging to me about the relationship is that nobody’s holding back,” Springer says. “Everybody’s participating fully. And it means that there’s going to be friction.”