ARCHITECT Attends the Third Annual Ultimate Megafort Competition

Last night, the National Building Museum (NBM) hosted its yearly Ultimate Megafort event. For its third iteration, the Washington, D.C., institution attracted 24 teams looking to construct cardboard forts, sip on some local beer, and devour delicious snacks. After an hour of building time, teams armed with plastic balls duked it out (which looked like the ones from Snarkitecture’s summer installation, “The Beach”).

Each ten-member team was instructed to build within 15-foot-square constraints. Although the forts did not have to take up the entirety of the space, they did have to be sturdy enough to shield their builders from the opposing teams positioned about a half-dozen feet away, or rather: across the “battle field.” During the allotted construction period, NBM event staff strolled through the area to evaluate the creative use of materials and various defense strategies. The use of outside materials, such as decorative ornaments or tools were allowed. Zip-ties and hole punchers to ensure structural stability were also provided by the museum.

The ARCHITECT staff haphazardly constructed a fort that was going for something similar to Charles and Ray Eames’ “Giant House of Cards,” or Swiss artist Zimoun’s “Cardboard Elements.” Many attendees muttered the words “abstract,” if that’s any indicator of what was actually pulled off. Alas, reader, we did not come out on top this year. Instead, the two winning teams from each side were Pampelmousse and Tipsy Tipi.

However, all was not lost because we did manage to capture this video of the West wing ascending onto the East for one last final hurrah. We chose not to participate in order to accurately convey the debauchery, of course. Enjoy.