CLR begins to make its mark in the zoo world with influential, award-winning, and ground-breaking work at clients such as the Bronx Zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, and the Riverbanks Zoo. Future Principal Greg Dykstra and future Associate and Lead Exhibit Designer Larry Dame join the firm during this period. CLR staff who are also students at the University of Pennsylvania begin to use Computer Aided Design (CAD) in the office.

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Coe relocates to Philadelphia to teach at the University of Pennsylvania. Lee follows and soon they found CLR Design in Jon’s garage, eventually moving to Philadelphia’s Chinatown to share office space with their friend and future partner, John Rodgers. Unlike other firms at the time that provided design services for zoos, CLR was the first design firm that from the onset focused on zoos, conservancies, and other animal and landscape related institutions and attractions.

Gary Lee joins and becomes a partner at Jones & Jones, working alongside Jon to revolutionize the way zoos and zoo habitats are designed. Two of their projects for the Oregon Zoo, The Cascade Stream and Pond (1982) and Penguinarium (1983), are each awarded Exhibit of the Year by the precursor to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

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Jon Coe begins to formulate new ways to integrate animal behavior and wellbeing into zoological habitat design, culminating in the influential 1976 Woodland Park Zoo Long Range Plan which he co-wrote for the Seattle design firm Jones & Jones.

On a visit to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo while a student at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Jon Coe sees two chained elephants fighting with each other. Coe askes a nearby keeper, “Why are the elephants fighting?” The keeper replies, “Because they are chained up.” Coe continues, “Well, why are they chained up?” The keeper retorts, “Because they are fighting.” This event inspires the emergence of a new zoo exhibit design theory based on the integration of animal behavior and wellbeing with a focus on ecology and habitat landscape design.