Creating a cake in the clouds!

Buro Happold

07/06/2012 撰稿人：: Tracy Hobson No comments

A team from our London office in the UK has helped to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations by creating a four metre high chocolate crispy cake tower, appropriately decorated with dozens of red, white and blue cupcakes.

Competing against teams of engineers from Arup, Expedition and the Institute of Structural Engineers as part of a challenge to build the tallest cake for the Jubilee, the Buro Happold team opted for a lo-fi approach to the design and production. After lots of testing and deliberation, the team chose to craft a simple ‘brick-built’ structure, with crispy cake ‘bricks’ moulded in recycled photocopier paper boxes, created by staff working at home, or in our Newman Street office kitchen.

On Sunday 3rd June, in front of a cheering audience of hundreds who braved the torrential rain to join in the fun at the Diamond Jubilee Festival in London’s Battersea Park, the chocolate tower was constructed and topped off with a delicious sponge cake crown. With a roar of approval the tower was finally toppled and the crowd was invited to tuck into the wreckage of the crispy cake bricks and cupcake flag! One of the team’s goals was to create a cake that wasn’t just tall and stable, but would also taste delicious; the team realised this ambition when the cake was bestowed with a special award for ‘Tastiest Cake’.

Team leader Tracy Hobson commented, “Our design might not have appeared the most ambitious, but it showed that sometimes a simple approach to a brief really is the most effective. This competition has been lots of fun for all involved, including colleagues who took Green & Blacks chocolate and Nestle Cheerios home, to create bricks ready for us to use; the Fabulous Bakin Boys who provided the gorgeous cupcakes and sponge cake crown and Marriages Millers who provided the flour! It might be a while before anyone here can face melted chocolate again though!”