Eden II

Tea Mäkipää's floating sculpture, Eden II, is anchored in a 35-acre lake on the IMA grounds. The Eden II appears to be a ship carrying refugees who are fleeing from catastrophic climactic change. A guardhouse on the lakeshore allows visitors to view and listen to imagined activity concerning the ship.

Although Mäkipää's original idea was to use an existing vessel for the project, she eventually decided that she would "construct a floating structure that resembles a ship". To enable the Eden II to look and float like the ship it represents, Silver Creek Engineering identified three primary objectives in our structural design: structure, stability, and mooring.

The outline of the sculpture
is formed from fully welded
steel tubes. . .

. . . then covered with
a sheet metal skin.

The steel frame provides rigidity and strength against snow, ice, wind, and wave loading.

Structure

The sculpture floats on rows of pontoons attached to the underside. To keep the boat from overturning due to wind or waves, weights were hung below the pontoons to lower the boat's center of gravity.

Due to fluctuations in the level of the lake and to prevent the sculpture from moving, it had to be moored. A set of weighted anchor lines was attached to the boat and located to withstand wind, waves, and currents.

Stability

Mooring

Launching The Eden II

The Christening

Up, Up & Away

Sometimes it takes a village to launch a sculpture. Our guys are standing in the yellow circle.

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