A worker inspects early phases of the rock construction - as coatings begin to cover rebar adn building infrastructure.
Building something of the size and scope of
Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes is a tremendous undertaking. Years of planning and construction lead up to the opening.
At times, Allan Sutherland, the Aquarium’s Director of Exhibits and Production, seemed rather conchy - an Australian term that describes someone who’s all work and no play.
Charged with interpreting the harsh habitat that is depicted in the Australian exhibit, Sutherland knew that no detail was too small.
“The exhibit is an immersive experience. We want to take visitors into a new world. More importantly, we’ve built a real world for the animals. This is the place where they sleep, eat, and play - the place where they live,” he says.
The challenge is nothing new to Sutherland, having built award-winning exhibits in the past such as the Amazon River Forest and Venom: Striking Beauties.
Grounded in Reality
For the Australian exhibit, the process began over three years ago when Aquarium staff visited the northern region of Australia in November 2001. They were especially struck by the beauty and rock formations of the country's gorges.
While working, members of Sutherland’s team reference thousands of photographs and hours of video footage gathered during the visit to Australia’s gorges.
“We’ve done everything possible to create a museum-quality representation of an Australian gorge’s rock walls. We don’t want visitors feeling like they’re visiting a miniature golf course with cardboard rocks and turf grass,” says Sutherland.
Builders in Baltimore hand-carved thousands of cubic yards of concrete into the sharp angular features of a gorge.
Crews hoist one of the many living plants into its place on the rock walls.
Bringing the Land to Life
To help bring the exhibit to life, artists painted mineral stains, algae, lichen, and moss onto the rock wall.
Throughout the rock formations, inserts were made for planters to house live flora. About 95 percent of the vegetation is living, which creates a more natural effect for visitors and animals alike.
The realism is especially important to Grey-headed flying foxes. These animals land like airplanes on an aircraft carrier, flying over a branch and then hooking it with their feet and swinging to a stop.
As a result, Sutherland’s team of designers worked closely with artisans at CemRock in Tucson, Arizona to create a naturalistic environment for the new exhibit, adding life-like trees, vines, roots, and grasses – including two trees designed especially to support the hard landings of the exhibit’s flying foxes.
A Land of Extremes
The immersive exhibit depicts a land of fire, drought, and flood that tests the outermost demands of evolution and includes some of Australia's most highly adapted species.
Pandanus stumps, tangled limbs, and intertwined tree roots represent the water-ravaged flood season.
Designers included flood-tossed, charred trees and burnt grasses to mimic the harsh season of heat and fire.
“Ideally, visitors are surrounded by realistic environmental conditions without realizing that the experience has been diligently planned,” says Sutherland.
