Toledo Zoo - Museum Wall

The renovation and design of the Toledo Zoo’s Museum of Science was challenged by a lack of space and some grade changes around the building. The construction documents called for the contractor to provide shop drawings complete with design calculations and stamped, engineered drawings or a Redi-Rock retaining wall to complement the adjacent building. AA Boos, the contractor for the project, contacted Turner Concrete Products to provide the drawings and materials for the Redi-Rock retaining wall which was specified on the drawings. Turner turned to DGL to provide the stamped, engineered design. The Redi-Rock retaining walls were utilized by the site designer to provide a decorative wall to hold back the slope coming from the upper exhibit and pedestrian areas. The area below the wall was also the building access for the Zoo’s maintenance and delivery vehicles.

The Redi-Rock wall was about 100 ft. long with a maximum exposed height of 8 ft. This wall was designed as a gravity wall with the challenges of holding the backfill around a buried rainwater harvesting tank and maintaining the slope from a separate concrete retaining wall. The wall also turned a corner in the middle of a curve to butt up to the existing Museum of Science building wall. That meant that a transition had to be made from a standard batter wall which stepped back 1 5/8” in every 18” of height (5° batter), to a 0° batter wall to keep the joints closed enough to restrict the drainage aggregate from spilling through the wall joints.

To make the decorative retaining wall safer and even more appealing, a fence was added to the top of the wall to keep Zoo patrons and staff from getting on top of the wall and having the opportunity to fall off the wall. The retaining wall blocks were also equipped with electrical boxes to allow for the installation of LED safety lighting within the block wall.