Sako: Building a Bell Tower

The prototyping process is one of the most important parts of our Family Fun Day prep, and one of my favorites. A fun combination of research and art making, prototyping allows me to get a hands-on test drive of the activities before we take them out for the public!

For this last Family Fun Day, we prototyped 4 complex activities, one being a sculpture modeled after Noguchi’s Bell Tower for Hiroshima. It seemed like an overly ambitious idea, to build a whole structure on our own, but with the help of my rockin' pal Dina we were able to throw together a fairly simple paper-and-tape model to start picturing what the final sculpture would look like.

In our first round of prototyping, we immediately identified some issues with structural integrity. The materials we were using would not hold the planned weight of the clay ornaments we would be building on the family fun day. So we came back again with some wooden dowels and hot glue in order to build our scaffolding— it seemed to work like a charm! Not only were we able to increase the scale, but the dowels were so strong with glue that the structure could stand on its own.

I really love prototyping because it always ends up being a successful craft time with my friends. It’s rewarding to walk away from each session more confident in our plans with the information gained from trying it out ourselves. Every time we prototype, it makes our activities stronger, just like our sculpture!

Photos by Dina