The end of the year is quickly approaching, and with that comes the hustle of the holiday season, a scramble to wrap up projects before vacations start, and preparing for the code cycle changes. While all that can be overwhelming, my favorite part of my job also happens this time of year: KPFF LA Structural’s Gingerbread Competition! This year we are celebrating 8 years of building and destroying gingerbread structures. It’s the time of year when I can combine my two passions of engineering and baking.
This competition started as a fun idea and took off in a way no one expected. It is now composed of four aspects:
- Educational lesson(s) on an aspect of architectural history or the engineering industry. Past examples include
– The Seven Wonders of the World
– History of Bridges and Bridge Design
– Temples
– Residential Architecture - Individual or team build of a gingerbread structure based on a specific theme
- Presentation of the gingerbread structure
- Shake Table test of gingerbread structure in which it MUST fail
The competition is a fun time and a great way to connect with our coworkers, but also provides individual development. The architectural history education component gives us a better understanding of the architectural and engineering industry. The presentation allows us to practice our public speaking in a fun, low-pressure environment. Hidden talents shine in reenactments, raps, short films, and even a full band performance.
The excitement of the gingerbread competition even brought out someone’s handyman creativity – and one of our engineers made us a shake table. With plywood sheets on tracks and an attached sawzall, the makeshift shake table mimics lateral shaking in an earthquake. The gingerbread structures are clamped to the plywood and shaken until the satisfying collapse.
This competition was so popular, we continued it during the COVID Pandemic. Because we couldn’t come together to build and destroy it on the shake table in the office, we found a way to do it at home. We built ginger-bridges and loaded them with canned food to see how much weight they could support.
This year we will be back to structures and the shake table. This year’s theme is “US Monuments.” My brain is already spinning with ideas for a build. This competition brings out engineering creativity in me that I didn’t know I had and I don’t usually get to use on actual buildings. Whatever challenges await us this year, I’m sure they will be fun, entertaining, enriching…and tasty!
This year’s competition will be held on December 14 in our DTLA office. We’ll be sharing the festivities on Instagram and TikTok. Follow along at @kpff_la
