The Wenger Cube is a truncated hexahedron. The cube was first designed in 1970 in Santa Cruz, California. The idea came to me while making structures for an artist friend. My friend's request was to make a solid cube with a portion of one corner removed. After making this object, I explored removing the corner completely. The result was an object with a triangular face. When the object rests on that face, a shape with three sloping square roof sections is created. The idea of making a large version followed quickly.

I cut the desired lengths out of 4x4 fir beams and with the help of many small temporary supports I began to tie the beams together. The structure was very unstable until the final diagonal beam was installed, at which point everything became solid and strong. After replacing the temporary supports with the final gussets, I was left with a beautiful object.

The next step was to design metal brackets that could be attached prior to assembly, brackets that would minimize the time of instability during assembly and provide attachment points for hammocks.

In 1979, Sunset Magazine published an article on the cube. That article may be seen here.

I believe that a designer in Russia saw the Sunset article and used the idea to design a covered outdoor picnic area at the VDNKh in Moscow. While touring the VDNKh in 1983 I caught sight of this structure and jumped off the tour bus, causing great concern to the tour guide. It was a tremendous thrill for me to see this Russian cube.

In the 1970s I used clear kiln dried fir or clear redwood to make the beams. In 2010 I returned to working with the cube shape and settled on 2"x2" square steel tube as the best material to use. A 10' cube in steel weights about 800 lbs. and easily holds three Yucatan family size hammocks filled with people plus others climbing on the beams. By hanging an "arial silk" from the center peak one has a beginners arial support at a height of 11'.

Of course, the shape may be used for many purposes, as seen in the photos below.

Photos of the cube.

Drawings of the cube.

Purchase of the cube.