Concept and Design
The Back from the Brink Project team at Buglife asked us to create a structure that offers visitors the chance to experience the fragile world of these very rare spiders. Our team produced a design that combines sculpture, interpretation and play in an innovative way.
The BFTB team provided us with the science and knowledge and we designed the spider web structure and spiders to be as realistic as possible. We wanted the overall experience to be genuine and we carved the spiders from wood and then painted making sure that all the details were correct. The eyes, leg segments and fangs all had to be to the correct scale and the right colour to achieve the realistic look.
This is the female lady bird spider partly submerged in her burrow. You can see the amount of detail we wanted to achieve with the sculpture. She even has shiny black fangs!
Children can climb on the spiders and learn more about them in an exciting and imaginative way. We surrounded the whole structure with heather to provide an authentic habitat backdrop to help interpret the importance of heathland conservation.