waterfall – Koda Creative – Artificial Rock

Kea habitat designs #1

I am working on the habitat design for a new kea Nestor notabilis exhibit. Here is the first draft model of one of the areas.

In the model, the zoo keeper is about to hide some food treats into that tree. The tree is a replica of a wind blown specimen which you might find high up in New Zealand’s South Island Alps. It will be made from steel and shotcrete and have epoxy lined holes into which the treats can be inserted. I have just realised the zoo keeper may have a few problems getting up there so we may have to add some steps into that fake rock or put a stainless steel ladder there.

Also in this habitat, there is a stream, waterfall and pool so the keas can bathe, cool off and wash their food in. The water will be on a closed system kept clean by mechanical, bio and U.V. filtration.

Find out more about keas here via the Kea Conservation Trust of New Zealand

Rockwork and waterfall for West Indies koi pool

These are some pictures from a recent artificial rock project at a private home in The West Indies.

The steel and concrete rock structure is built around a plant room which houses the water pumps and filtration for the pool. The services are not connected yet so we did a trial run with a submersible pump to test each part of the waterfall. The rocks and waterfall are part of a koi pool set in the landscaped gardens of a beautiful home. The rock has built in irrigated planters. Unfortunately we had to leave before we saw the finished planting and the waterfall at full effect.

Amazon waterfalls

The image below is a photo of a small waterfall we made in an amazon themed aviary. The trees to the left are 7m high supports for the stainless steel mesh structure and inspired by buttress trees Ceiba pentandra. The buttress trees and rockwork are made from steel, concrete and shotcrete. The brief for this project was to imagine what a small Amazon Rain Forest tributary waterfall might look like.

Artificial waterfall in amazon aviary — Amazon aviary waterfall

To make this artificial environment, we searched on Flickr for ‘amazon waterfalls’ and the following images are amongst what we used for artistic reference. I wanted to post these pictures to show part of the process we use when researching a zoo enclosure project. I hope you think we faithfully reproduced our little imaginary part of the Amazon Rain Forest.

To recap, the image above is fake and the ones below are real.