DesignEarth / MCBT
Client :
This DesignEarth project was in collaboration with The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology(MCBT), a reptile zoo andherpetology research station, located 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of the city
of Chennai, in state of Tamil Nadu, India. The centre is both a registered trust and a recognized zoo
under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and is India's leading institution for herpeto faunal conservation,
research and education. The bank is the first crocodile breeding centre in Asia and comes
under the purview of the Central Zoo Authority, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.
It was established with the aim of saving three Indian endangered species of crocodile, the marsh or mugger crocodile,
the saltwater crocodile, and the gharial, which at the time of founding of the trust were all nearing extinction.
Job :
Build a complete facade for their whole outer wall, this facade would include mix media sculptures
of various species of crocodiles and snakes along with sand casted cement sculptures of turtles and lizards.
Arriving on location :
MCBT has its own charm, combining all the elements of a natural habital for the reptiles
and space for research and develpment. At one end you can visit this place to learn more about reptiles
or like we did one can experience the true beauty in the working of this Crocbank.
Spread over an area of 8.5 acres, this massive reptile park was the home for the designEarth crew.
A croc pitt at MCBT that holds 413 crocodiles
Thr Crocbank looks over the beautiful east coast of south India
Building Time :
We had roughly 15 working days, which means that every move we made was planned
and executed as per plan everyday. Since there were two distinct types of sculptures the whole crew split into two :
Welding team
Sandcasting team
The goal was to build over 20 sand cast sculptures and 20 metal sculptures.
i was part of the Welding team for 75% of the project and then i was put on to the sand cast team
to help them paint and details their sculptures. This was a great opportunity for me to contribute with all the skills that i have learnt.
The welding team was tight from the very beginning. We had an amazing work chemistry
and planned our quota of work for every half a day.Building the frames of the Reptiles
was the most amazing learning experience through out the project. Understanding the anatomy
of the reptile and applying it into a 3D form using 4mm iron rods was challenging, with the quantity and qualit
y we were looking it cant be surprising to say that we used over 2500 m of Iron rod in total.
working on the metal frame of a mugger sitting on a rock
Welding and cutting metal rods
after a frame was built, it was given a layer of varnish and then it would proceed to the surfacing phase.
Adding wire mess to the Cobra sculpture.
late night shifts
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During the last 4 days of production, as a team we decided to merge the teams and have everybody focus on surfacing the metal sculptures, and only 4 people focused on detailing and painting the sand casts.
Collectively we decided that i would move to work on the sand casts as i had alot of skill in terms of painting and drawing.
To me its not the medium that matters but the depth in subject that fascinates me. If now i have the paintbrush as my medium, i would not hold back to execute to the highest detail and perfection.
With over 20 sand casts to paint, we got moving. Completely exciting process of change from building to painting
adding width to the bold sea turtle.
A great time painting with my friends from the DesignEarth Crew
All the Sculptures were completed and ready on time though my facilitators had to visit MCBT later to install the sculptures due to some technical difficulties.
Metal and cane Double spectacle Cobra.
Cement Sand Cast Sculptures
Sea turtles and Lizards
Komodo Dragon
Gharial, Saltwater and mugger crocodile sculptures
metal rod and wire mess sculpture of the common Krait
Metal rod, wire mesh and jute rope sculpture of the Whitekar's Boa
The whole journey of DesignEarth has been phenomenal. I would like to thank Jackson Poretta and the Chakra Design team for giving us this amazing opportunity to work with them. The MCBT team were amazing to work with and the whole of the DesignEarth crew are a mixed bag of passion and character.
DesignEarth as a course was more than an experience, its was a life lesson.
( photo credits to Arjun Agarwal, Jackson Poretta, Arnab Basu, Maria Shakir and Harsimran Kaur )
