How the Arch Got It's Shape

This is a great little short film that talks about the strength in the shape of a catenary arch. The catenary arch is a representation of the gravity pulling down a length of chain between 2 points, flipped upside down. The geometry of the catenary arch is all around us in our modern construction and considered to be the strongest of all arch shapes. It is also a well recognized shape with the Gateway arch in St. Louis as well as the famous 'golden arches' of McDonalds.

Dry Stone Structures - Bengan Jonasson

Above is a great original song called 'Dry Stone Structures', from Swedish bass player Bengan Jonasson. He's playing an interesting instrument called a 'Chapman Stick'. It's part of the guitar family, but has 10 or 12 individually tuned strings that are usually played by 'finger tapping'.

Wassiac, NY

I found the photo above in a recent search on heritage dry stone structures in North America. The two structures above are charcoal kilns built in 1825 found along the Iron Heritage Trail near Wassiac, NY. Im not sure if they are dry laid but they are impressive still. A great example of corbelling roof structures and are a very similar structure to some dwellings found all over Europe. The purpose of the stone kilns were to replace a less efficient earth pit fire in creating the coal. These huts were introduced by Noah Gridley to produce coal at a more efficient rate for the Gridley Iron Furnace. Another pin point on the map to visit! watch the video below to see a quick tour of the kilns.

Arch Enemies

A friend of mine sent this to me. I thought it was pretty clever.