tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post5152388092058481629..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Brunelleschi's DomeJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-56916694275308036872021-08-15T16:45:47.457-04:002021-08-15T16:45:47.457-04:00I forwarded this wonderful post to an architect fr...I forwarded this wonderful post to an architect friend. His reply:<br /><br />In my architectural history class located in Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center of the Visual Arts at Harvard University under the auspices of the Harvard Graduate School of Design the theory in 1972 was:<br /><br />Brunelleschi brought an egg to the interview. He cracked the egg, emptied its contents on the floor and placed the more pointed half of the shell on the table - pointy side up. He then asked the interviewers to place their hands on top of the egg, press down and try to break the egg. None could do it. <br /><br />The egg supported the force with no side supports, no buttresses. It was an internally cohesive membrane that spreads all the forces - both vertical and lateral - throughout the entire shell so that no one single point has to take a “point load.” (On your veranda where beams or trusses rest on a column - a post - the column is taking a “point load.”)<br /><br />The overall brick pattern - including the herringbone - helps create a membrane-type strategy that spreads the load. So do the internal cross connections within the two layers of the dome. An egg shell is made of outer and inner membranes. See attached. Note the similarity between the shoe of the pointy end of the egg and Brunelleschi’s dome. It’s possible that even the air space and its humidity within the membranes calibrate so as to act as a “lubricant” to keep the masonry “skins" and wood structural members pliable to move around ever-so-slightly as they spread the loads.<br /><br />How did Brunelleschi intuit all this? I don’t know. How did I intuit the cantilevers at the Phoenix Convention Center? I don’t know. At least I had some engineers who could prove that it would work. <br /><br />Doing a “mock-up” is always a good idea for an innovative architectural idea whether structural or environmental. I had a mock-up made for the column/beam joint at the cabin - the "screw & glue" joint - and jumped up and down on it to test it. I did a sixty-feet long, twenty-feet high glass wall that contained all five curtain-wall types for the Anaheim Convention Center and blasted water at it with several fire hoses and high-speed fans simultaneously to determine if it would leak. Frank lloyd Wright famously piled sand bags at five times the projected load on a mock-up of a single “mushroom column” at his Johnson Wax building before it finally crushed.Jenniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06944907905498662549noreply@blogger.com