Recent Projects – Page 2 – Koda Creative

White Faced Sakis enjoy their new trees

We were very happy to see the white faced sakis, golden lion tamarins and pygmy marmosets using the trees we had made a few months previously. It was also good to hear that the enclosure is working as it should and now needs less keeper maintenance.

I managed to take these pictures on a sunny Sunday afternoon when we were taking a break from building the sloth tree. The weather had been so nice in Finland during this visit that the animals were spending a lot of the time enjoying the outdoor part of their enclosure. I got lucky with these ones.

I wrote about the building of these trees in a previous post.

Helsinki zoo made a small video of the animals during their first explorations (scroll to bottom of page to see this)

male white faced saki — Male white faced saki

Golden lion tamarin moving up in the world

Artificial Tree and vines for Coco

Koda Creative often build artificial trees into zoo exhibits. They usually serve some practical purpose for instance, structural supports, places to hide or to provide enrichment possibilities. Trees are generally built from steel and fine concrete. The finish is hand carved and painted appropriately with a suitable non toxic paint.

This artificial rainforest tree was built into an existing zoo enclosure for a Hoffman’s sloth, agoutis and toucans. The tree supports semi-flexible vines which lead to feeding stations and latrine for Coco the sloth. The vines were made to exactly the right diameter for Coco’s claws to help her move around the high enclosure more easily.

Materials used:
Steel, fine concrete, our own recipe epoxy and exterior grade acrylic paint.

For other examples of our trees see:

Two Jungle trees for white face sakis

Amazon aviary

We built this parrot aviary in the beautiful Alameda Wildlife Conservation Park, Gibraltar. The central aviary supports (7M high) are solid concrete/shotcrete and are replicas of the buttress trees (Ceiba Pentandra) native to South America. The rockwork is inspired by the geology found around the upper reaches of the River Amazon. Within the rock, there are nesting boxes developed in co-operation with the animal park keepers. For the external structure of the aviary, we used stainless steel zoo mesh supported by bespoke stainless steel struts and local pine poles treated with a non toxic and environmentally friendly wood preservative. A small waterfall and stream runs through the exhibit which is kept clean by bio filters and UV sterilisation.

Materials used:
Steel, concrete, shotcrete, stainless steel and sustainably grown pine.

Two jungle trees for White Faced Sakis

These two jungle trees were built into an exhibit for white faced sakis, golden lion tamarins and pygmy marmosets. The zoo keepers previously had to keep replacing real trees in here which was time consuming. In addition to this the real wood was getting infected with mites which were causing a nuisance to the animal inhabitants.

Some of the branches contain hidden feeding stations which are epoxy lined and draining for ease of cleaning.

Materials used:
Steel, fine concrete, epoxy and outdoor grade acrylic paint.

Cambodia Macaque Temple progress

These are a series of photos showing our progress building an Asian influenced macaque temple exhibit. All pictures shot from roughly the same angle.

Original enclosure — Original steel enclosure before demolition.

Monkey temple progress 1 — Old enclosure demolished and now we have the temple stonework and zoo mesh support poles.

Monkey temple progress 2 — Zoo mesh in place and stone work coloured.

Monkey temple progress 3 — Just before opening.

Helsinki Zoo Mammoth Dig

Here a few pictures from a Mammoth Dig we made in Helsinki Zoo. Every evening, in summer, the bones get buried in the sand. In the morning the young archaeologists make the ‘new discovery’!

mammoth dig helsinki zoo — Young archaeologist, Emmi, with the discovery of the day.

Angkor Wat head

Main Contractor : Houthoff Zoo Design

I loved making this head recently in the giant petshop I talked about in a previous post. It is made from EPS carved with a chainsaw and then shot with a render (shotcrete) the render was then carved to the final finish. The colours are an acid stain and acrylic wash with hand painted lichens expertly done by Susy V. The height, which you cannot tell too well by the photo is about 2.8m.

Hancock Natural History Museum

Main Contractor : Koda Creative

Recently completed, is a small project at The Hancock Natural History Museum, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK for IAT. The museum is undergoing a multi-million pound re-fit and is due to open in May ’09. We provided hand carved rockwork and coral effect theming for twelve aquariums and vivariums.

Above, you can see a coral reef tank complete with artificial coral inserts. Also on the agenda were displays for bearded dragons, axoltls, dab lizards, horseshoe crabs, cuttlefish, royal pythons, green tree pythons, corn snakes and desert hairy scorpions.