24EM_X05

Grace Xu
Julian Daniels
Kirstie Qian

Our team was inspired by the straw and took the pliable object as an opportunity to design a post-tensile system to counteract the plastic straws innate fragility. The system consists of straws as beams or columns, fishing lines as post-tensioning elements, and acrylic slabs and stones as loads. To strengthen the straws, a slab is inserted into pairs of fishing lines, each tied to the ends of the straws. As the strings get tensioned by the slab, they compress the slab and hold it in place without needing any fixed supports below. This forms an interdependent system in which the straws and slabs mutually support each other.