Here on this page, you expected to see progress pictures. Here they are finally! This page will continue to be built............
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March 2000 This project for the City of Melbourne grew in some unexpected ways. To complete work we had four days and two nights. The installation consisted of three connected parts; the whole work was called 'BEACON'. It all begins with several tonnes of bamboo lifted by crane to the roof of the town hall, in the middle of the night.... |
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For the opening of Moomba Festival the aerial performance group 'Redirected Baggage' performed 'Rathaus', suspended from the main bamboo chords. All the rigging was by Bambuco crew; compared with building the structure, this was the easy part. |
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From ground level we built a tetrapod structure beside the portico of the Town Hall, used by the 'Five Angry Men' for performances of 'The Bells'. This was a reworked version of SCAFF, first seen at the Adelaide Festival and Arts Market in 1998. |
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The major part of BEACON was built through and around the clock tower, beginning 20 metres over the heads of passing pedestrians and ending 40 metres up, at the top of the tower. The third element of BEACON was constructed in one night: an Arch over the street and the tram lines, in front of the building. Even with the complex logistics around the tower and critical safety issues, we finished the project in 4 days. An amazing effort by our crew of sixteen. And thanks to the unwavering support of Jeff Taylor, our contact with the City of Melbourne.
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Our next project was a bridge over the Wimmera. The Wimmera is a river in rural Victoria. It cuts through the country town of Horsham. The local arts festival invited us to build a bamboo bridge over this river. It served as a focal point for the festival and was used for it's final spectacle.
The bridge had a span of about 50 meters and it took us a week to erect. An unusual part of the construction was that we used volunteers to get the bridge built.
One of the main technical problems we had to deal with was the buoyancy of bamboo. We constructed a dozen frames which we used as pillions. With effort we had them standing upright on the riverbed. But as soon as the wind picked up we found that your bridge had the tendency to drift away. Funnily enough against the current. Oh well, as always for every problem there is a solution, but it was good for a laugh to have this huge structure slowly floating upstream.
The Festival was a great success. And we like to thank especially the volunteers for their energy and enthusiasm..
(pics follow)
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