Since the grand opening in September 2008, the California Academy of Sciences has been offering a feeding demonstration and public program at their popular Lagoon exhibit. Biologists that delivered the program had to sit on, or stand behind, the guard rail at a corner of the lagoon…a very awkward position for doing this work.
Recently, the Academy contracted with Tenji to help make things a little more elegant for the program. Working with the Academy, Tenji developed and installed a Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP) triangular platform that is flush with the curb, is visually unobtrusive, and engineered to hold staff, plus ‘100 lbs of shark’ (for animal transfer episodes). Now, once they pass through the gate in the railing, the biologists are out of the public space, but in full view of the visitors on their new program ‘stage.’