Boston, (9/5/09) 1229 EST -- "It's an exquisite animal that sits on four dainty toes," said John Ochsendorf, describing the thin shell structure that is being assembled this week at the MIT Museum outdoor courtyard.
Ochsendorf, a professor of architecture and civil engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lead his graduate students in breaking ground, Monday, on their full scale model of an adobe brick structure. The piece of art is a "trial run" for the actual structure that the students will assemble in New York City at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum this spring.
Inspired by the works of Antoni Gaudi,the students at MIT were asked to create a vaulted sculpture in the traditional Guastavino vaulting style, using thin tiles. The structure boasts self-supporting arches, built in the customary fashion as the original Valencian structures, yet it incorporates several modern day phenomena.
By using only a single layer of adobe brick, the 15 foot-high structure has an extremely low carbon footprint. Yet, unlike older brick and mortar vaults, this vault is designed with much more elaborate arches and angles--meaning that the students had to crunch a lot of numbers in the planning process.
The architecture students used new, high-tech structural design software to design the project, which they plan to show to the public on Friday with a celebratory gathering at the Museum's location at 265 Mass. Avenue.
There are over 75 structures and buildings throughout Boston built with the Guastavino tile arch system. These works include Boston University's Marsh Plaza archways and sections of the Boston Public Library.
By Catherine Moore, camoore@bu.edu
