Second-year architecture students may have depleted Fargo’s supply of Popsicle sticks for their most recent hands-on project.
For their Structure 1 course, each student had roughly two-and-half weeks to construct a tower as tall as his or her own height out of Popsicle sticks.
But the challenge didn’t end there. No glue, wax, clay or other glue-like substances could be used to connect the individual sticks. Instead, students had to derive a connecting system that would provide rigidity. Connectors could be stitched, weaved, screwed, nailed, stacked or rely on friction. Each of the towers also had to be built on an eight-inch cubed base, which provided a ground condition to work from.
Of course, the tower also had to encompass a sense of space. “While a ‘blade of grass’ tower can meet the other requirements and exhibit structural properties, it is necessary, as architecture students, to conceive space,” said fifth-year architecture student Robert Arlt, who is a teacher’s assistant for the course.
Arlt says the takeaway lesson for the students was the exploration of detail and how it can be applied across a whole tower. “Structurally, using the Popsicle stick (a pre-made industrial component) with a specific detail connection is not so far from actuality in the way it is thought or constructed. Steel members are pre-made industrial components that must be assembled.”
Gabriela Baierle, architecture student and another teacher’s assistant for the course, said some of the most innovative projects resulted from initial missteps. “A lot of students succeeded after failing and that shows their engagement to the assignment.”
The Popsicle stick towers will be displayed at the Plains Art Museum in downtown Fargo until 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 12.