Building with Ice In September 2003, I have built an igloo for an exhibition in Amsterdam. Building an igloo in the summer was a great challenge that could be realized with the help of a freezing machine of EasyCool BV. Building with ice has never lost my interest since, so when we got the opportunity to realize the greatest igloo in the world in Finland, in the winter of 2014, we took it with both hands. It was the fi rst major project using fi bre-reinforced ice for building purposes. The use of fibre-reinforced ice made it possible to build a dome with a diameter of 30 meters and the highest dome of 21 meters in the Sagrada Familia in ice project. Da Vinci’s Bridge in ice is a sequel to these projects. It gave us the opportunity to explore new building possibilities for fi brereinforced ice. Just as concrete can be reinforced with steel rods or fibres, ice can be reinforced with wood or paper fi bres. It can increase the compressive and tensile strength of ice by three times more. Ductility can even be increased 20 times. Geoffrey Pyke has been the first to discover the possibilities of reinforced ice. During the Second World War, this technique was used to reinforce the ice on lakes around St. Petersburg in order to make the ice strong enough for allied aircraft to land on. Since then, a few studies have been carried out, but the technique has never been applied in practice. In my view this is regrettable. The use of fi bre-reinforced ice has numerous possibilities compared to plain ice. For example, fibre-reinforced constructions can be much more slender and have a longer span compared to plain ice. Of course we could not assure that we will succeed in delivering the ‘Da Vinci’s Bridge in Ice ’ in seven weeks. As with Da Vinci the process and the idea are more important than the result of one project. Beside the bridge, we were proud to have managed several other projects by diff erent universities and local residents of Juuka. In the past years,the construction of the 30 meter igloo and Sagrada Familia were a toss-up(?). We needed every minute and despite the ‘hot’ weather we managed to succeed. Last year, we had 3 weeks longer and were with a bigger group of people. However, the challenge was also much bigger. Much depended on the weather and the enthusiasm and perseverance of everyone involved. In theory the project would have worked, however a week of 3 degree and rain destroyed the ice constructions just before the scheduled opening. Arno Pronk 7
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