The President 1991-92

Quirky structures Mr R. S. Taylor, on 18 June, posed the case of a wall ‘fastened intimately to the full height of a stanchion, though not in a way that would offer structural assistance’. Oddly, however great the eccentric dead load action of the wall, no bending moment would be induced in the stanchion. Professor H, G. Allen of Southampton University comments as follows: I was interested to see the eccentrically-loaded column in The Structural Engineer for 18 June. I came across this problem when I was doing calculations at Halcrow for the Turbine Hall of the Buenos Aires power station, in about 1958. Verulam

Professor J. Wilton-Ely It is appropriate that Dr. Mainstone ended his presentation with a slide of a model (the model of the church that Justinian is shown offering to the Virgin in the mosaic over the south entrance to the narthex). I have done a good deal of research on the history of architectural models. It would be interesting to know more about how documented models were used in antiquity and in the early Middle Ages. Although there appears to be no documentation in the case of Hagia Sophia, they must surely have been using structural models to calculate some of the problems involved in the way that Brunelleschi had to cope with unprecedented spans by the use of models in the design of his Florentine dome.

Winner of the Institution's annual Kenneth Severn Award, Rena Vogelzang, answers President Brian Uy's essay question on structural efficiency, embodied carbon and maintaining public safety.