The Living Desert Zoo + Gardens

Set in the heart of the Coachella Valley, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is one of the top-rated zoos in the United States and one of the few in the world dedicated exclusively to desert ecosystems. Located in Palm Desert, California, The Living Desert welcomes families year-round to explore African safaris, Australian adventures, native wildlife, and botanical gardens, all within a landscape shaped by the beauty and resilience of arid ecosystems.

As part of an expansion of its family guest experience, The Living Desert opened the Bill Gross and Pax Stengaard Gross Oasis Splash Pad, a cooling destination designed to help families beat the desert heat. With daytime temperatures regularly exceeding 100°F during summer months, the Oasis Splash Pad has quickly become one of the most popular features at the zoo, drawing families back repeatedly throughout the season.

A Desert Come to Life Underfoot

Life Floor Studio designed the Oasis Splash Pad surface to extend the zoo's immersive desert environment. Rather than applying a generic aquatic palette, the design team drew directly from the Sonoran and Mojave desert ecosystems that surround the park, translating the colors and creatures of the California desert into a richly detailed surface that guests walk, splash, and play on every day.

The color palette, anchored in warm earth tones of Aviator, Lilypad, Mojave, Sandbar, Olive, and Sandstone, mirrors the desert landscape: sandy washes, sun-baked rock, scrub, and the surprising pops of green that emerge after a desert rain. Woven throughout the surface are custom desert wildlife inlays, prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and the desert plants that sustain them, with every species fitting within a single tile.

The result is a splash pad that feels like it belongs, one that doesn't just cool guests down, but draws them deeper into the desert world The Living Desert has spent more than 50 years celebrating.

Designed in Collaboration with The Living Desert

Life Floor Studio developed the Oasis Splash Pad surface in close collaboration with The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens team, creating a floor that serves as an immersive exhibit. The design is organized as a series of geographical islands and zones, each featuring a distinct cluster of animals from a different part of the world. One zone highlights creatures from Australia, another showcases African wildlife, and another is dedicated to species native to North America. Each animal fits within a single tile as a custom inlay, giving the surface a level of detail that rewards close exploration.

Life Floor squares and rectangles form the broader landscape, using the warm desert palette to abstract the terrain between zones, sandy washes, rocky outcroppings, and patches of scrub, while a set of custom-cut tiles at the splash pad entrance features the Living Desert Zoo logo, welcoming guests as they step onto the surface.

A playful layer of interactivity is woven into the design through hopping stones and bridges laid across waterways throughout the pad, inviting guests to play "the floor is lava" as they navigate the space. The Waterplay equipment on site features animal-themed spray elements that connect directly to the floor's zones, and the full range of aquatic play types, introductory, collaborative, risky, and imaginative, are accommodated across different areas of the pad.

The result is a splash pad that functions on multiple levels at once: it cools, it teaches, it tells a story, and it gives guests of every age and comfort level with water a reason to stay a little longer. Parents with infants explore the gentle bubblers along the edges. Older children rotate between the animal spray features and the water slide at the center of the structure. Families move through the zones the same way they move through the zoo itself — discovering something new around every corner.

Built for a High-Traffic Desert Environment

At 6,308 square feet, the Oasis Splash Pad is among the largest zoo splash pads Life Floor has installed anywhere in the world, designed to handle the volume of a busy family destination while standing up to the unique demands of a desert climate: intense UV exposure, extreme temperature swings, and a sandy, abrasive environment.

Life Floor's Ripple texture and 3/8" cushioned tiles provide the slip-resistant, impact-attenuating surface required for a wet-play environment used by guests of all ages. The closed-cell, non-porous tile construction resists biofilm and bacterial growth that open-cell surfaces are prone to, while the modular format allows individual tiles to be replaced without disrupting the full installation, an important operational advantage for a facility that operates its splash pad year-round.

Sustainability is built into the design: a recirculatory water system keeps the splash pad running on just 4,000 gallons of water, captured, sanitized, and reused, reflecting the same conservation values that have defined The Living Desert's mission for more than 50 years.

The Oasis Splash Pad is proof that a high-performance aquatic surface and an immersive, beautifully designed guest experience don't have to be two different things.

Project Highlights

Facility: The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens
Location: Palm Desert, California, USA
Designer: Life Floor Studio
Install Date: April 2025
Area: 6,308 sq ft (586 m²)
Colors: Olive, Lilypad, River Rock, Sunshine, Aviator, Goldfish, Sandbar, Mojave, Terra Cotta
Texture: Ripple
Thickness: 3/8” (10 mm)
Installer: Safe Slide Restoration
Features: Waterplay

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The Living Desert Zoo + Gardens Information

Located in Palm Desert, California, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is a family-friendly destination and AZA-accredited institution dedicated to the deserts of the world. The zoo features African safari wildlife, Australian adventures, North American desert species, botanical gardens, hiking trails, and year-round programming for all ages.

The Oasis Splash Pad is included with general admission and zoo membership, and is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. during operating hours.

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