Verulam

Awarded the prestigious Swiss Prix Federaux des Beaux-Arts 1998 and the German Bauwelt Award 1999, the Buchholz Sports Centre was built following a successful architectural design competition and complements the Sports Complex of Buchholz in the town of Uster, near Zurich in Switzerland. It cost £3.6 million and was completed in 1998. Camenzind Grafensteiner

In the UK, there is an urgent current need to assess the serviceability of many masonry arch bridges as a result of imminent increases in permitted heavy vehicle axle weights within the EU. Vibration techniques, along with some others, can be used to assess the integrity of these structures. The arch ring, as the fundamental loadbearing component of these structures, is of particular interest. Insufficient attention has been paid in the past to the measurement and categorisation of the diferent types of modes of vibration of these structures and the ordering of their successive natural frequencies. This paper investigates the vibration behaviour of segmental arch rings of a range of realistic proportions and the corresponding variations of modal shapes and frequencies. Good comparisons are obtained in some key cases between the results from the modern finite element (FE) method and older previous work. The eflect of variations in the proportions of the arch ring on the natural frequencies is shown graphically, and there is discussion about the corresponding mode shapes. A.J. Pretlove and J.C.A. Ellick

Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Alton Towers haven’t seen anything like this. The London Eye, when completed, will be the fourth highest structure in the Capital, with a wheel diameter of 135m suspended dramatically by the River Thames on a cantilevered spindle over 22m long. This spectacular structure will dominate the view from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben on the north side of the river, and from the former County Hall building, which now houses two hotels and the London Aquarium, on the south side. John Roberts