Wichita ? It was too good to be true for Majola the lion.

A woman and her small child — easy prey — had walked into his new cage, right in front of him.

Excited, Majola lunged and made Craig Rhodes, Lee Engler and Matt Schindler proud.

The trio are principals at the firm of Wilson Darnell Mann. They design zoo exhibits, including the Sedgwick County Zoo’s Pride of the Plains spot where Majola lives.

Their design gave the mother and child a close-up view of how lions act in nature — and protected them with an inch of safety glass.

A photo of the encounter three years ago remains a prized possession for the designers.

Intimacy with animals

At first glance, Pride of the Plains looks like the East African plains to the animals and to zoo visitors.

Instead of bars, the designers built steel and concrete “rocks” that look like the kopje rocks that form gathering places on the East African savannah. The rocks form the walls of the exhibit and house the animals.

The paths wind among the rocks, allowing visitors to see the lions from different levels, angles and backdrops. There are no bad views.

But the exhibit, which opened in 2000, also is full of intricate details.

Rhodes pointed across the exhibit at an eroded river bank on the far side of the moat surrounding the lion’s compound.

“The artists could have just left it,” Rhodes said. “But they really got caught up in it. They used fiberglass fibers so that it really looks like exposed roots.”

There’s also the story of LeTa Akiiki Kagiri, a fictional zoologist whose Land Rover, tent and field notes are sprinkled through the exhibit.

Rhodes said stories like the zoologist’s allowed the zoo to compete with television and video games.

“It just feels good,” said Jim Marlett, assistant director of the Sedgwick County Zoo. “The feel is terribly important, and one of the things it does is develop a sense of intimacy with the animals.”

Exhibits weren’t designed like Pride of the Plains 15 years ago.

Visitors are supposed to interact with the animals now, instead of watching as the creatures lie bored in their unadorned cages.

The designers’ innovations have helped them — and the 11 architects they employ at WDM Design — land design projects at nearly two dozen zoos in 10 cities since they opened the company three years ago.

The unit has planned or designed projects at zoos in Denver, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Okla., Topeka, Emporia, Scottsbluff, Neb., Abilene, Texas, Waco, Texas, South Bend, Ind., and Salisbury, Md.

The Oklahoma City Zoo’s Oklahoma Trails exhibit will cost more than $7 million. It’s more than twice the size and more than four times the cost of Pride of the Plains.

“We were a little hesitant,” said Bert Castro, executive director of the Oklahoma City Zoo. “We were going to be their biggest zoo. But we had gotten great feedback, so we took a chance because we felt they were ready to work with a major zoo.”

In the works

The Brazos River Country exhibit at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco will start in a sunken Spanish galleon and lead through seven geographical zones from the sea to the Texas Panhandle. Workers will break ground this week.

“In the world of zoo design, what they bring to the table is fresh and innovative,” Cameron Park Zoo director Jim Fleshman said. “They take the time to really listen to you. They have the ability to put what you are thinking onto paper.”

But the WDM designers aren’t done in Wichita. The Australia and South American pavilion they redesigned at the Sedgwick County Zoo reopened Friday, after being closed for four years. The changes by the WDM team will allow the birds to fly as they would in nature.

The team also is designing a $5.5 million Gorilla Forest project for Sedgwick County to be completed next year.

They hope to take the exhibit one step further than Majola’s home.

After passing through a Central African village of mud walls and tin roofs, visitors will cross a swinging bridge and enter a foggy jungle with noises they’d hear in a real jungle. Once they reach the center of the exhibit, they’ll be able to view a 30,000-square-foot gorilla habitat through glass on three sides.

“With Pride of the Plains, you feel you are in the lions’ habitat, but you’re really on the edge,” Rhodes said. “With Gorilla, you are in the center.”