: how did people in the past ensure that a building/structure will be structurally sound?
In: 5150
They basically knew from experience in what way to build buildings for them to be sturdy. To the modern eye, the surviving ancient buildings are massively over-engineered (which is likely one factor of why they are still standing). Like, today we would build the same kind of structure using much less of the same materials. As the saying goes, anyone can build a bridge that stands, but only an engineer can build a bridge that barely stands. In this sense, all modern buildings “barely stand”, that is, they are as sturdy as is required plus a safety margin, but no more than that.
They built it and if it fell over it wasn’t structurally sound. If it didn’t fall over they copied it.
In Roman time the builder had to stand under the arch, when the wooden scaffold was taken away…
Only good builders left standing
It’s been touched on a bit already, but the real art to engineering isn’t making something that’s structurally sound, it’s making something that’s barely structurally sound.
If you place enough concrete or stones you’ll probably eventually get something that will stand, but modern engineering is more calculated and often only uses the amount of material needed for the purposes of the structure in order to save costs. Typically there is also a factor of safety that engineers use so even structures today you could say are technically “over engineered”, but the factor of safety helps give that buffer for extraneous circumstances.
Gaudí made inverted models of his buildings out of strings and weights. The curves and tension of the weighted strings allowed him to simulate the effects of gravity on his arches and columns https://www.filamentpd.com/news/gaudi-gehry-cad
Overengineering, partially. Having a one story building (an old English pub or small house comes to mind) that’s made out of stacked stone blocks is basically going to be more endangered from erosion than structural unsound-ness.
The Novel Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet gets into some medieval building techniques. It’s really good if you are into historical fiction.
They didn’t always. A fine example is the Erfurt Latrine Disaster where the second floor collapsed under the weight and some 60 people crashed down into the sewer below the building and drowned in human excrement.
It was the equivalent of a dad tugging on the ropes to something tied to their car and saying “that ain’t going anywhere”
I’ll add that a lot of joining methods were developed before modern hardware, so interlocking was used out of necessity. Small sample: the dovetail was invented before the nail was practical to use.
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.
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