The Natural History Museum’s new gardens, part of the Urban Nature Project, offer a refreshed outdoor space showcasing the story of Earth’s biodiversity and its evolving ecosystems. A centerpiece of the gardens is “Fern,” a 25-meter-long post-tensioned bronze replica of a Diplodocus carnegii, crafted with precision engineering by Factum Arte.

The bones of a Diplodocus were 3D scanned by the NHM and sent to us for validation, cleaning the scan data, and positioning the bones into a final pose. I assisted with this process, confirming the 3D ready to pass to the engineers to work on the post-tensioning aspect of the project.

Equally captivating is the bronze cast of a Hypsilophodon foxii, otherwise known as Hippy, a smaller herbivorous dinosaur.

Working from a 3D scan provided by the NHM, the data was cleaned by the Factum sculpting team before passing to me to prepare the data for fabrication. This included working alongside Structure Workshop in London to design an internal structure for the dinosaur using stainless steel rods that met safety standards for outdoor public works, whilst not detracting aesthetically from the piece.

I then segmented the 3D model of Hippy into pieces that could be individually molded and cast and then proceeded to 3D print in high detail resin over the period of a few months.

The bones were labelled and an assembly drawing produced. These were then passed to Fademesa foundry where their team molded the bones, made waxes, cast and assembled the bronze dinosaur.

Full project:

https://www.factum-arte.com/pag/2022/a-bronze-cast-of-a-diplodocus-carnegii-for-the-natural-history-museum