May

I was suffering the long-hair blues in the summer heat.  But a trip with Hannah to my favorite QB House in Shinjuku soon fixed that.

  

Hannah has been making great progress in her climbing class.  I joined her for a family-climbing day on on Sunday afternoon.

After weeks of rain the weather has finally cleared

It has been very hot.  Perfect ice-cream weather.

 

One weekend I unexpectedly ran into something Id wanted to see for years, and in a most unexpected place.   Times Square in Causeway Bay had an exhibition of the great spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.

I was only at Times Square by accident.  I'd got confused with the World Trade Center where I was supposed to meet Rika for lunch.

Anyway the exhibition was very good.

Model of Sagrada Família (which is being completed with the help of Japanese funding).

Gaudi is famous for building organic (non-standard) shapes.   To ensure that these buildings didn't fall down he had to ensure the loads were appropriately distributed, and avoid unbalanced lateral forces.   This is a fiendishly difficult modeling problem to solve without computers.  

Gaudi solved this in the most ingenious manner by modeling the loads 'upside-down' using chains and weights.  He would create a floor plan and hang chains representing the superstructure of columns and domes.  Weights would represent the weight of the structure.   Under gravity and tension the chains hang in shapes that were perfectly balanced, and could be built in masonry (under compression).

I'd always wanted to see a demonstration of this method, and the exhibition had a huge one with a mirror underneath so you could see the 'building' from 'above'.   But I couldn't get a good photo of it.

There was also a smaller model of a church nave in string.

And turned 'right way up' (below), you can clearly see the pillars, roofline and the nave and isles   The string (hanging under tension) show the lines of force that when built in masonry transmit the compressive loads from the roof down to the floor.

I tried to explain all this to Hannah but since I couldn't rotate the model I had to hang her upside-down from her feet.