Whimsical floating stair nears completion

The whimsical art piece was the outcome of a simple idea using blocks of wood and glue to build a scale model. The artist envisioned the blocks, or treads, as literal building blocks, and by simply attaching one block to another the structure would emerge. Easier said than done! At full scale, the individual blocks are hollow and are cast in aluminum. Each weighs from 300 lbs to 600 lbs depending on the thickness of the aluminum specified. The blocks are glued together with high-strength industrial adhesive and then bolted together. The adhesive resists the large shearing forces between each block and the bolts resist flexure and torsion. The resulting structure is extremely rigid and able to “meander” between supports.