The Giants of the Sperrins is a collaboration with the world renowned artist Thomas Dambo and McGurk Architects to design and install a series of his ‘Trolls’ at three sites in the Sperrins, with the purpose of increasing rural tourism throughout the area. The three Giants and sites are:
Darach, the Guardian towers over 11m tall at the 542m summit of Mullaghcarn, County Tyrone.
Ceoldán The Stargazer kneels at Davagh Forest.
Nowanois, the Seanchaí or storyteller lies at the Sperrin Heritage Centre, in the picturesque Glenelly Valley.
The sculptures have in internal skeleton of galvanised steel, modelled using Rhino3D to achieve the realistic human form and ultimately was used for the fabrication model as providing 2 dimensional information would have been a regressive step. The steelwork is only the primary structure, with a complex arrangement of free-form oak secondary beams attached to adjustable brackets and plates around the body. We had to design in flexibility to allow the artist to tailor the form of the Trolls as they built them on site, a challenging task when compared against the rigid steel fabrication process.
Key to the success of the project was the 4 day design workshop in Dambo’s Copenhagen studio, where we developed the form of the skeleton using 1:20 scale models, refined the secondary timber structure and created a new language for the components – snakes, moon discs and fur!
Using recycled timber is synonymous with Thomas Dambo’s work, typically wooden pallets however the 60 year design life requirement required a new approach. Design ID provided the technical advice on the selection of a suitable wood species, recommended oak heartwood and worked closely with Swedish oil preservative specialists to achieve the 60 year design life. The oak was sourced from offcuts from Danish furniture makers and rope for the iconic hair and beard from salvaged shipping rope from the Danish harbour beside Dambo’s Copenhagen workshop, in keeping with Dambo’s sustainable roots.
The foundations for all three are reinforced concrete pads, resisting the overturning from the gales that batter each site. The most challenging site was unsurprisingly the summit of Mullaghcarn that has unforgiving and unpredictable weather throughout the year. To reduce the time spent on site, large components were prefabricated off site to create a maximum of 16 steel to steel connections, and the head, feet and hands were fully assembled in Copenhagen under the watchful eye of Thomas and his team.
The end result is a unique addition to the Sperrins that will encourage and promote both local and international tourists to visit, particularly Thomas Dambo’s cult fans who travel to world the see his work.
Client: Derry City & Strabane District Council
Architect: McGurk Chartered Architects
