Cai Guo-Qiang's Brisbane pool of art

As part of his Falling Back to Earth exhibition, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang built a jungle waterhole at Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, complete with 99 life-sized animal replicas.

Garry Wenck of Leisure Engineering did the engineering, and he says it was quite a demanding brief.

“The exhibit was built on a display floor of the gallery, and any water leakage would have the potential to compromise other levels of the building and associated exhibits,” he says.

“The waterhole was built to our hydraulic and waterproofing design, using a primary and secondary PVC lining system and a series of engineered timber frames to support both the liner and the deck.”

After 18 months in planning and approvals, it took six weeks to construct and 250 metres of pipe to plumb.

Redlands Pool Service has a contract to maintain all the water related exhibits at the gallery and Tom Stanley was charged with keeping the 250,000 litre waterhole clean. Because of the delicate nature of the installation, he had to be careful how he went about it. He sought the help of Maytronics who provided a battery-powered cordless M5 Liberty robot.

Stanley controls the robot with the remote while walking through the exhibition and says the crystal-clear water clarity is testament to the Liberty’s dual-level filtration capabilities.

The exhibition is on until May 11, 2014.