Was thrilled with my class in particular and education in general! The class 8th students built an arch with just bricks and stones. No mortar, not even mud!
It was a wholesome educational experience. Meenaksi, our school principal wanted the children to participate in the construction work that is going on for the hostel building. We thought they can build an arch for one of the verandahs, since it is a structurally interesting concept. I downloaded some reading material from wikipedia so that they were aware of the concepts like compression, tension and keystone. Last Saturday we did the initial work in the hostel, laying the founding with rocks and mud. The placing of the rocks to form the basement is a skilled work and it was done by Sabari (who is in class XI now in a government school but is an ex-Puvidham student). We less skilled folks helped in mixing mud, shifting stones and bricks and providing him those materials. But our students also observed how he placed the rocks and jammed them together. We have finished the basement.
I thought may be we should experiment building a small arch before getting to the real thing. I do not know enough about structures and was not sure if we could build one with just bricks. Meenakshi, who is an architect by training, said of course! So we embarked on building an arch. Actually I had no role to play other than explaining the wikipedia article to the children (and also suggesting we could use cycle tires for initial support). Most of them are construction workers children, unlike me who is a child of a college professor and a central government employee! So they knew more about that stuff than me and so I quietly let them do the job.
This arch is such a counter intuitive thing that almost all of them were quite sure that this whole thing will come tumbling down. But voila it didn't! All the students were absolutely thrilled and so was I. I thought I will share this joy with you all...(sorry about the picture quality, it was taken with Nokia 2500 phone camera!)
The amazing piece of architecture.. (the school dome which in itself is cool is in the background)..
And below are the proud architects (left to right Selva, Murthy, Ramesh, Mani, Prashanth, Kalimuthu, sitting under the arch Ravi)
The amazing piece of architecture.. (the school dome which in itself is cool is in the background)..
And below are the proud architects (left to right Selva, Murthy, Ramesh, Mani, Prashanth, Kalimuthu, sitting under the arch Ravi)
1 comment:
Ram,
thank you for this post and explanation of the project, sound fun & memorable for all involved.
i'm an architecture-loving, mid-30s woman from the US who is originally from Texas, moved all around and am now in Jersey City, NJ right across the river from NYC.
the older architecture in the city is just wonderful, we're lucky to have many old solid brick buildings with elements of arches i'd rarely seen elsewhere in the States. arches have long fascinated me, and are impressive for endless reasons... their strength is indeed curiously "counter-intuitive" (as you said)
i've always been amazed how arches work and how they can bare such a weight while remaining to look ever so graceful. (much like an average Indian woman with a child on her hip, or lugging heavy foodstuffs/et c clad in a full sari in oppressive heat)
... there is indeed perfection in the model, and when it works it will lasts forever.
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