Bow Habitat's Glacier Archway

Earlier this year, we tackled a unique design and installation project for Bow Habitat Station. Carvel Creative had come up with an initial concept for the project and then handed it to us to complete the design, fabricate and install the piece. The idea was to take an existing architectural archway in the building and revamp it, changing its shape, making it more dimensional, and transforming it to look like a glacier!

Bow Habitat Station is a public environmental education facility dedicated to fostering and appreciating Alberta’s air, land, water and biodiversity. It consists of many interpretive exhibits where visitors can learn about Alberta’s environment!

A lot of collaboration between Bow Habitat and our design lead, Amy, went into this project. The initial design consisted of a colourful approach to the entryway, with shades of teal, purple, blues and touches of green and yellow. But as time progressed, they felt that the final product should be closer to a glacier colour palette with more tones of whites and blues. Amy’s numerous mockups and designs resulted in a stunning four-layer, 3D archway design.

After the design was approved, we then started production. We took around seventeen 5’x 10’ sheets of Sintra and direct printed pieces (some being double-sided) of the archway design with our HP R1000 Latex flatbed printer. This was a tricky process, as we needed to figure out how these would be cut and installed correctly onto Bow Habitat’s walls. After we printed the sheets, they were cut into roughly 36 individual pieces on our CNC machine.

Once production was finally completed, Tyler, Dave, and Amy took on the challenge of installing the pieces in the entryway of the water gallery. With lots of brainstorming and problem-solving, they figured out the best way to get the Sintra pieces to the wall was to have plastic standoffs that would hold them into place, along with some VHB double-sided tape. As a result, they were able to get a seamless, unique 3D look to the glacier entryway.

The process of this project was complex, but with high collaborative efforts, the pieces all came together beautifully. The glacier archway display is currently up for anyone to visit at the Bow Habitat Station.