Guimarães to everywhere, still building
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Not a resume. More like the site behind the stone.
I am from Guimarães, in the north of Portugal. I started behind a camera, working events as a photo and video technician, and in 2012 I joined Pangea Rocks and learned to build rock by hand. Nineteen countries later, I still care most about the part nobody notices: a rock face that simply reads as real.
Every build is different: a reef tank in Lithuania, a boat ride in Poitiers, an island at Chester Zoo. What I bring to each one stays the same. Talk straight to the people on the job, make the rock read as real, and run the site so the crew can do its best work.
Most problems on a build are people problems before they are rock problems. I say what is happening early and plainly, to the client, the designer and the crew. The habit comes from years of running events and dealing with clients directly.
Artificial rock only works when nobody stops to think it is artificial. Every face is carved and painted against the real thing, one panel at a time, until it reads as stone, reef or cave.
A good finish starts with a good plan. Materials on time, the right hands on the right panel, safe access for everyone, and a clean handover when the last coat is dry.
Before rockwork there was a camera. From 2007 to 2012 I worked events as a freelance photo and video technician, and that is where I learned to read a room, deal with clients and organise a job. In 2012 I picked up the trade at Pangea Rocks and never put it down.
Make it
Real.
Make it
Last.
Make it
Safe.
Real enough to fool the eye up close, strong enough for water, weather and visitors, and built without anyone getting hurt on the way.
The shape is decided in the armature. If the steel is wrong, no amount of carving will save the rock, so the structure gets checked before anything else goes on.
Real stone, reef and cave walls are the reference: strata, erosion, the way water stains a face. Copying other artificial rock only copies its mistakes.
Big surfaces are finished in sections a crew can carve while the shotcrete is still workable. Planning the panels is planning the finish.
Paint and sealing are where rock becomes believable or does not. Shadow, mineral colour, moss and staining go on in layers until the eye stops questioning it.
A rockwork job is only as good as the hands on it. I lead from the scaffold, explain the why, and try to leave every site with a crew that knows more than when it started.
01 / Armature
Bent and welded rebar sets every curve before a gram of concrete goes on.
02 / Mesh
Layers of mesh and lath are tied over the steel so the shotcrete has something to grip.
03 / Shotcrete
Sprayed concrete is built up in layers, panel by panel, to the depth the carving needs.
04 / Carving
While it is still workable, the surface is carved by hand into strata, cracks and texture.
05 / Paint
Colour, washes and sealer, coat after coat, until the rock reads as real from any distance.
Every role left something on the tools. Events taught me to deal with people, eleven years at Pangea Rocks taught me the craft, and Petro Art put me in charge of the whole site.
Leading crews on themed rockwork and fabrication for theme parks across France: Futuroscope, Walibi Rhône-Alpes, Parc Astérix, Europa-Park and Puy du Fou.
Eleven years of sculpted reef, cave and rock habitats for aquariums and zoos, from Chester Zoo and the Burj Al Arab aquarium to Nausicaá and the Kaunas Mega Aquarium.
Running events and handling clients directly, which is where the habit of talking straight to people and organising a job properly comes from.
The trades that go into one piece of rock, from the first bar of steel to the last coat of sealer.
What happens off site still ends up on site. Most of the reference for a believable world comes from somewhere other than the job.
Five years behind a camera at events came before the rock. It trained the eye for light, angle and what a viewer notices first, which is most of what makes rockwork read as real.
Portuguese, English, Spanish and French. Nineteen countries of sites means the briefing is rarely in my first language, and the crew should never have to guess what I mean.
Theme parks, zoos and aquariums across nineteen countries. Each one a place people walk into, built by hand from steel to the last coat.
Mission Bermuda, Poitiers. Over 2,750 m² of themed rockwork across a 7,000 m² ride environment, from 3D design through carving and final paint.
Mission Bermuda, Poitiers. Over 2,750 m² of themed rockwork across a 7,000 m² ride environment, from 3D design through carving and final paint.
Fourteen years in, the jobs keep getting bigger. This is where I want to take the work next.
Whole lands, not single features: rockwork, water and structure planned as one environment from the start.
Leading larger teams across more trades, with the same standard on the last panel as on the first.
Bringing site experience into 3D design and planning, where most of the cost and the risk get decided.
Training the next people who can carve and paint rock that reads as real.
