Landscape Made of...Tape?

The Great Lakes Science Center is putting on another awesome, interactive exhibit! Starting on May 24th TapeScape: International Tape Station is open for the public to enjoy until September 2nd. The structure, composed of packing tape, scaffolding, and a few pool noodles, is a playscape modeled after the International Space Station and the orbiting Orion Module. Guests can crawl through the mock station viewing interactive exhibits and projections. The artist, Eric Lennartson, intends to “harness the tensile strength of tape,” by wrapping it around the metal framing to create the climbable structures.

With a bit of instruction from the artist, our team got to be the lucky ones to construct this massive structure. After the scaffolding was assembled and padded by the pool noodles the crew began wrapping the framework in miles and miles of tape. Section by section, our men create webbing with tape that transforms into platforms and tubes which can support the weight of a full human (I, the author, did indeed test out a platform or two, quite impressive). After a few weeks of work, the TapeScape is now ready for visitors to learn and enjoy.