Three hundred new Architecture students took part in the ‘Battle of Bricks’ on Friday. In groups, they built bridges using loose bricks. The longest bridge won, but did it set a record?
Team F took a little too much risk with their bridge from bricks. (All photos: Tijs van Reeuwijk).
A teeming mass of yellow and blue T-shirts gathers in the car park near the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the end of the afternoon. It is Friday 16 August, and the first-year induction weekend is beginning. As always, this student association’s SteeOWee precedes the OWee introduction week. The first-year Architecture students collect their 100 bricks, after which they have half an hour to use them to build a bridge.
How to start?
Some groups are staring somewhat helplessly at their pile of bricks. How to start? In other groups, some students take the initiative, upon which the others join in. Three different approaches emerge.
Group F, for example, builds an arch supported by many hands. After closing the arch, the structure should be strong enough to stay upright. But when the new students take their hands away, the arch turns out to be crooked and the structure collapses.
Risk of collapse
Other groups start with two piles of bricks on either side and try to bridge the gap between them with carefully placed bricks. As the gap gets smaller, the tension among the students increases. Each new brick adds to the risk of collapse. But some do succeed.
Others opt for a safer approach and erect a pillar in the middle. This may result in beautiful structures, but the competition is all about the free span. And with a central pillar, that is not large.
After half an hour of building, the judges measure the distance covered by each structure. The record dates back to 2019 when one group reached 165 centimetres. This year, it is group Z that comes the furthest, at 126 centimetres. The jury also awards a bad luck prize and one for the most beautiful construction.
Construction song
The Battle of Bricks concludes with the rehearsal of the Architecture song. By the end of the weekend, the aspiring Archies should know how to diss other studies, such as Industrial Design Engineering (‘cut, paste, glue’) and Aerospace Engineering (‘crash anyway’). Because Architecture and the Built Environment is top, everyone here agrees.
- Study association Stylos and the Koninklijke Nederlandse Bouwkeramiek, the umbrella organisation for the brick industry, organised the brick festival for the 14th time.
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