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The Minneapolis Gateway Arch

Yesterday in lab, two of my coworkers built an arch into their bay. They had collected an insane number of styrofoam boxes piled high around their desks, and it was starting to impede their workflow. They decided to clean up their work space and make a beautiful piece of art at the same time. That's Blake on the left, and Orion on the right.

It's not as structurally sound as an arch is supposed to be. The top is held together by tongue depressors stuck through the styrofoam, and the flanges at the top are as much structural as they are decorative. Still, it's an impressive feat of engineering for two scientists with no formal training in architecture.

I learned a bit about arches recently at a local art exhibit on Eero Saarinen, who did have some formal training in archtecture. He designed the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I visited St. Louis two years ago this month:
The Gateway Arch is a caternary arch, the arch shape that bears the most weight. If you ever want to try again, Blake and Orion, this is how you build a catenary arch:

Comments

  1. J-W Maessen12:05 PM

    "Caternary" is Minnesotan for "Catenary", right? Like "bague" and "ruf"?

    PS - the actives found an old residence guide showing a Titan game, and forwarded it to the mailing list asking "What game is going on here?"!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. J. Michael Andresen2:26 PM

    Yes, I guess I didn't learn as much about arches in that exhibit (or at MIT) as I thought I had. I'll fix it in the article so as not to lead others astray!

    PS - Sad that Titan has gone the way of the dodo at ET. Perhaps we can undertake a re-education program?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Leah Leah Bo Beah6:23 PM

    I heart your labmates without ever having met them. AWESOME.

    ReplyDelete

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