Sunday, December 14, 2008

Twists & turns

Snowy here today; we’re definitely in winter now. During the gentle blizzard this morning, people were moving furniture out of the house next door. An elderly lady has lived there alone for years, but is frail enough now that her family has moved her elsewhere.

Good discussions this weekend with N about Dashiell Hammett (after watching The Maltese Falcon), and about Mexican architect Felix Candela, who created amazing buildings using hyperbolic paraboloid geometric forms. His buildings are made of thin concrete shells calculated in such a way to distribute the weight or load of the structure throughout the shell. They have withstood earthquakes, while many traditionally built structures didn’t.

What does a hyperbolic paraboloid look like? Think of the shape of a Pringle potato chip; that’s one form.

But now it’s Sunday night, time to mentally prepare for the twists and turns of another work week.

2 comments:

Katie said...

Lovely snow photo. I like LOOKING at snow photos, but I'm not all that interesting in seeing snow for real though (7 winters in Minnesota, and 3 in Maine were plenty). It's bad enough that we're dealing with record cold temps here, and snow in the Berkeley hills!

Ms M said...

There's snow in the Berkeley Hills? You must be cold! Snow is pretty to look at, but it's not fun slipping and sliding around trying to get to work, so I'm with you on that!
I grew up in the Midwest and lived for a time in Wyoming. Both of them get a lot of snow, more than we do here. I would enjoy a milder climate...