Spectacular spider web snags big audience in special exhibit

“Animal Houses” at Chicagoland’s Morton Arboretum invites visitors to experience wild animal habitats firsthand. Last fall, the Arboretum invited artists and designers to submit habitat designs and a juried committee selected 11 finalists. Chicago Scenic’s Jeff Bartle, director of creative development, created one of the winning designs, the web of the orb weaver spider.

Bartle’s design features a 20-foot in diameter rope web that mimics the spider’s signature spiral weaving style. The human-sized web proved to attract some sizeable prey: children. As children play on the web, it vibrates, simulating the orb weaver’s special defense mechanism—it bounces its web to repel potential predators.

Cupcake on wheels is a sweet surprise

If you see a colossal cupcake atop an Airstream trailer, it’s not a sugar-starved hallucination. It’s a Chicago Scenic-crafted “confection” made to promote The Cupcake Express, a bakery on wheels that will sell its treats at fairs and other public gatherings in the Midwest.

The three-foot-tall gigantic goodie is made of steel, foam and hardcoating and topped off with multi-colored wooden sprinkles. Designed by Project Specialist Kevin Taylor, the cupcake was built atop a post that is secured into the floor of the trailer and extends through the vehicle’s roof.

Chicago couldn’t mask its pride in playoff-worthy Blackhawks

Chicago hasn’t seen many NHL wins, so to celebrate, the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza wore a special hockey helmet crafted by Chicago Scenic. Then the brachiosaurus outside the Field Museum donned a Blackhawks jersey to celebrate the team’s playoff status and cheer the team on during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Chicago Scenic’s Metals Department fabricated the steel armature that gives the jersey its shape during the Bears’ 2007 Superbowl and used it again for the Blackhawks jersey CSSI made from 400 square feet of fabric.

Custom-designed and crafted turtle makes a big splash

Project Specialist Kevin Taylor worked slowly and steadily to bring a custom-designed turtle to life for “Turtle Splash,” a West Chicago water park.
He started the project with an image of the park’s turtle logo and ended with a larger-than-life attraction.

Because of its size, eight-feet high and 18-feet long, the turtle was built in several pieces to facilitate its transportation and installation. CSSI’s Metals Department started the project by creating the turtle’s steel “skeleton”. Next, Taylor used CSSI’s foam to sculpt the turtle’s body on top of the steel armature. To ensure its longevity, Taylor applied our hardcoat system and painted it a custom green, then sprayed that with green auto paint. If the outer paint is scratched, the green hardcoat will still be visible, reducing the need for future maintenance.

LEGOLAND not playing around in redesign

The LEGOLAND Discovery Center, an indoor theme park located in Schaumburg, Ill., stepped up its game recently with Chicago Scenic’s help. Working for owner Merlin Entertainments Group and alongside the project’s architect Byrne Design LLC, CSSI assisted in the attraction’s recent upgrades.

CSSI re-themed the waiting area of the “Dragon Ride” to look like the entrance to a castle, complete with “brick” walls and archways that match the ride’s medieval theme.

CSSI also constructed several new elements for a new ride, “Magic Bikes,” to look like it is made out of Legos. The ride’s base resembles a Lego techno motor, the propellers on the back of the gondolas look like Lego radar dishes and the lifting arms look like long Lego pieces. New gears added to the top of the ride complete the new theming. In the “Lego Factory,” a fun place to see how the toy bricks are made, CSSI added long, clear acrylic pipes filled with Legos to simulate how they might travel along a factory production line.

Chicago Scenic also built a large L-shaped desk that functions as a photo booth where visitors can purchase pictures of themselves enjoying the park. The medieval-style desk includes cabinets for storage and a plasma screen monitor that displays the photos for sale.

CFL bulb lit up Texas rodeo

CSSI helped Reliant Energy of Texas round up some positive publicity at a Lone Star state rodeo. Working for Paragon Marketing, CSSI built an oversized CFL bulb that visitors tried to lasso while learning about the bulb’s energy-efficiency. The foam and hardcoated bulb was built on a spring so it moved when a visitor lassoed it. CSSI also provided an LED readout screen that demonstrated how human energy generated from pedaling a bike can be converted into power.