Ten-ton ice cube melting in Seattle park

September 10, 2016 A cube of ice, weighing about ten (about 9000 ) and measuring 80  (2) per side, is melting in, 's. The temporary art installation, set up yesterday morning, "showcases the stages of the natural water cycle as the ice shifts from opaque to translucent", the artists said. The project is part of the Seattle Design Festival, and was designed by ' Clay Anderson, Noah Conlay, Jarri Hasnain, Gregory Nakata, and Mark Olthoff. Crews began assembling blocks yesterday morning and had stacked all 64 blocks in place by 8:00 am.

It is not certain how long the 64 blocks of ice that make up the cube will take to melt, and discovering how the process unfolds is part of the intent. Olson Kundig contacted University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass to try to estimate the time it would take to melt, which Mass called "not a trivial calculation". He said the variables included how much sun warms the block, in turn dependent on cloud cover; condensation on the block's surface, thus variables like humidity, temperature, and wind; and heat conduction, both from the ground and from the surrounding air.

The installation inspired photographers at The Seattle Times, and under the hashtag #ok_icecube at and.