Biodóm (Városi Oázis) at Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden

The Biodóm grew out of the 'Pannon Park' programme devised by Budapest Zoo's management around a 1.7 ha hall, an aquarium of the Pannonian Sea and large outdoor enclosures, partly on the footprint of the former amusement park attached to the zoo. The design contract was signed in November 2014 with the Mérték studio, now Paulinyi & Partners; building began in 2017 according to Építészfórum, Tervlap and ENSI (Hungarian Wikipedia says 2018) and the structure was finished in December 2019. In 2018 the project, still under construction, won the International Property Awards prize for Europe's best leisure building. Costs then ballooned: the 2016 tender for the whole of Pannon Park stood at 34 billion forints and estimates reached 63 billion in 2020, according to Építészfórum, with funding, originally provided by the state, later disputed between the government and the capital.

Unable to open as planned, the zoo used the hall as an events venue: a light dome, a lantern festival, photography shows and, in February and March 2025, a prehistoric-reptile exhibition that drew more than 47,000 visitors. Planting began in 2021. After the inauguration on 30 June 2026 the public went in on 1 July 2026, but into only part of the project: about 1 ha of the central hall, fitted out for roughly 350 million forints. Before the opening, the zoo put the building's technical readiness at about 80%.

The Biodóm is an irregular-plan hall 225 m long and 117 m wide, covering 17,000 m² with 33,000 m² of floor area according to 2019 figures repeated by Tervlap; average height is 17 m and the highest point 36 m. A space-frame steel structure made of 1,505 bars and 539 nodes, all different, rests on a continuous reinforced-concrete ring; Paulinyi & Partners speak of a hill-shaped hall, which Építészfórum describes as made of four 'bubbles'. The 964 triangular fields take ETFE cushions: the architects ruled out glass, at least ten times heavier and far costlier according to Tervlap. About 45% of the ETFE area carries fixed printed shading; vents and smoke domes release summer heat, and each triangle is numbered so it can be replaced like for like.

Interior walls and pools are reinforced concrete dressed in artificial rock. Heating relies on a 7.5 MW district-heating connection and 1 MW recovered from the thermal system of the neighbouring Széchenyi baths; management says thermal heat covered most of 2025, with only four weeks on the district network. Under the vault, trees of 10 to 12 m can grow, and a route climbs three levels to a panoramic terrace.

Since July 2026 the hall has housed a tropical and subtropical oasis: about 13,000 plants over 2,950 m² of planters (150 troughs), among them 101 trees taller than 5 m, and a green wall of about 400 m² announced by the zoo. The first plants, in 2021, were Canary Island date palms and date palms, first used as sets for Marvel Studios' Moon Knight series; the rest come from private donations, purchases and above all five years of cultivation by the zoo's gardeners. On the animal side the zoo shows Hanuman langurs (a European breeding programme), Bali mynas, Palawan peacock-pheasants, African spurred tortoises, Henkel's flat-tailed geckos and Sakishima grass lizards, mixed with more than thirty prehistoric-reptile reconstructions, including a Brachiosaurus about 25 m long and nearly 12 m high. Tervlap sums up the intent: mostly Asian and African species in a regulated climate.

The Városi Oázis is visited with the normal zoo ticket, at no extra charge, and as the hall is climate-controlled it suits any season. It stands at the edge of the Városliget, on the Hungária körút side, near the Széchenyi baths whose thermal heat partly warms it. Allow an hour to an hour and a half for the route, which climbs to a terrace overlooking the whole volume. The zoo's historic Pálmaház is about 600 m away, so the two glasshouses combine into one visit. The Biodóm is not part of the Liget Budapest project but belongs to the zoo, and is only partly open: about one hectare of the central hall can be visited.