Miniaturezoo954
Well-Known Member
As some of you know, my passion for zoos have taken me in a journey to create the biggest and most detailed miniature scale zoo in the world. For the past few weeks i have been very involved in an extremely important part of this area, the zoo entrance.
For some time i had different ideas about this portion of the project, but as of recently, after receiving my primate building, i was so happy that i decided to work with the same artist in the next project right away: The zoo entrance, a realistic scaled down copy of the gorgeous Berlin Zoo elephant gates.
I never intended to copy any specific zoo structure, since the design of the diorama park is my own, but this gate has haunted my dreams for some time, and when i think of an entrance i think of this particular one.
So since i proposed this project to the artist, i have been envisioning this massive gate in my zoo, i wanted to have done:
The elephant gate itself
and the two kiosk buildings to the right and left, as well as fences and walls, this was a 3 phase project, and the artist gave me a timeline of 6 to 8 months to complete this project, one structure at a time.
yesterday i received an email with a final estimate of the cost of building this section of the zoo, and let me just tell you that it is almost double of what i estimated, i understand it is a very time consuming project, since the artist needs to do a lot of wood carving, and i had told him, that because of the historical value of this piece, i wanted as close to real life as possible, so a lot of small detail.
Just so you get an idea the gate itself would stand at over 3 feet tall, and one of the buildings, the actual entrance building would have to be very big.
So now i face a great problem, should i go ahead with this project, if i do, i will pretty much use all the funding i have left for this year, and that is not something i'm looking foward too, for two reasons:
1. the artist that makes my miniature birds, just finished working in an exihbit for the Chicago museum of natural history, and he will be open for work starting late march, i wanted to take advantage of this since this guy is bussy almost all year, and the most that i have been able to get from him is two species at a time.
I now have the opportunity of ordering from him 50 to 60 species of birds at one time, this would be very expensive, but i had already envisioned this great sub-tropical free flight aviary, for the zoo entrance, one of the reasons i came to tampa to study the lowry park's zoo entrance aviary, and a very important task i will take advantage off when i visit san diego in april.
The free flight aviary, takes very little money, since i will just need to buy materials, like the wood poles, netting, building accesories and so on, i have more than enough plants already to fill this place, and i'm supposed to get another large tropical tree species, a kapok tree this month.
But if i go for the Berlin Gates, i will run out of funding for the rest of this year, and to be honest i will not be able to put that kind of funding together for some time, since i have other plans in my life starting on 2010 with my girlfriend.
So either i do the great entrance now, or i move on, and do a much simpler entrance, that i could design. I love the Berlin zoo entrance, but at the end i'm working on a unique zoo, so is not like i will violate a historical order, if i do something different.
But is either the Berlin zoo entrance or a lesser detailed custom entrance, with the large free flight walk thru aviary.
Please help me make this dessision based on your zoo knowledge and what you think would be more impressive.
Let me note, that i already have close to 480 bird species already done and in my collection, so this additional species would just be a real pleasure to have because of the rarity of them.
help me deside
For some time i had different ideas about this portion of the project, but as of recently, after receiving my primate building, i was so happy that i decided to work with the same artist in the next project right away: The zoo entrance, a realistic scaled down copy of the gorgeous Berlin Zoo elephant gates.
I never intended to copy any specific zoo structure, since the design of the diorama park is my own, but this gate has haunted my dreams for some time, and when i think of an entrance i think of this particular one.
So since i proposed this project to the artist, i have been envisioning this massive gate in my zoo, i wanted to have done:
The elephant gate itself
and the two kiosk buildings to the right and left, as well as fences and walls, this was a 3 phase project, and the artist gave me a timeline of 6 to 8 months to complete this project, one structure at a time.
yesterday i received an email with a final estimate of the cost of building this section of the zoo, and let me just tell you that it is almost double of what i estimated, i understand it is a very time consuming project, since the artist needs to do a lot of wood carving, and i had told him, that because of the historical value of this piece, i wanted as close to real life as possible, so a lot of small detail.
Just so you get an idea the gate itself would stand at over 3 feet tall, and one of the buildings, the actual entrance building would have to be very big.
So now i face a great problem, should i go ahead with this project, if i do, i will pretty much use all the funding i have left for this year, and that is not something i'm looking foward too, for two reasons:
1. the artist that makes my miniature birds, just finished working in an exihbit for the Chicago museum of natural history, and he will be open for work starting late march, i wanted to take advantage of this since this guy is bussy almost all year, and the most that i have been able to get from him is two species at a time.
I now have the opportunity of ordering from him 50 to 60 species of birds at one time, this would be very expensive, but i had already envisioned this great sub-tropical free flight aviary, for the zoo entrance, one of the reasons i came to tampa to study the lowry park's zoo entrance aviary, and a very important task i will take advantage off when i visit san diego in april.
The free flight aviary, takes very little money, since i will just need to buy materials, like the wood poles, netting, building accesories and so on, i have more than enough plants already to fill this place, and i'm supposed to get another large tropical tree species, a kapok tree this month.
But if i go for the Berlin Gates, i will run out of funding for the rest of this year, and to be honest i will not be able to put that kind of funding together for some time, since i have other plans in my life starting on 2010 with my girlfriend.
So either i do the great entrance now, or i move on, and do a much simpler entrance, that i could design. I love the Berlin zoo entrance, but at the end i'm working on a unique zoo, so is not like i will violate a historical order, if i do something different.
But is either the Berlin zoo entrance or a lesser detailed custom entrance, with the large free flight walk thru aviary.
Please help me make this dessision based on your zoo knowledge and what you think would be more impressive.
Let me note, that i already have close to 480 bird species already done and in my collection, so this additional species would just be a real pleasure to have because of the rarity of them.
help me deside
