The Self-Supporting Wireframe
Source of inspiration: circus arts and tensegrity (architecture)
Creativity in the circus takes place on the artistic side as well as on the technical side and often to find innovative solutions to realize crazy ideas, you have to get out of the box. This often comes with the constraint of creating with little means.
In 2003, I had to make, in a short time, a stand-alone tightrope for a circus camp at my daughter’s school, but I did not have access to a welding workshop and I just had some wood as well as an aluminum tube. When, Eureka, an idea arose: two cables in tension, a mast in compression and a platform at each end to distribute the forces! The trick was played.
I had just, without knowing it, applied an architectural principle called “tensegrity” (the ability of a structure to stabilize itself by the use of tension and compression forces which are distributed and balanced there) for the creation of a self-supporting wireframe.
Our Autonomous Wire: a self-supporting and independent structure
20’ long, 24′ high, our self-supporting wire is completely self-contained (does not require anchoring thanks to the magic of tensegrity). Several users can use it simultaneously to learn how to take their first steps, such as the wire-rope, on the taut wire.
During the workshops that our street entertainers gave this summer in the 19 boroughs of Montreals with Chats de Ruelles, the wireframe activity was featured !
