We started to measure out the tipi's dimensions, and find out the best area of placement for ZSL London Zoo's newest teaching space

The three poles you can see being erected in the picture form the basis of the tipi as a structure. These were all lifted by hand and went into place relatively easily.

Once the main poles were put in place the other poles were arranged to give the shape of the tipi. At this stage we had been working on it for about 3 hours.

The excitement of getting the structure in place was short lived as we then realised the most difficult part of the operation was going to be attaching the canvas to the frame. The canvas was attached to a positionning pole and then raised to the tipi's 11 metre height.

As soon as the canvas was upright we had to pull it tightly around the tipi poles.

Once the canvas covered the structure it was knitted together with hazel stakes, you can see the hazel stakes quite clearly on this picture, running the entire lengthb of the canvas.

The finished product. The tipi looks amazing and forms the centrepiece of our scare tactics promotion which is running throughout October at ZSL London Zoo. The tipi is situated just behind the otters so come along and see one of our new presentations in this incredible structure.

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