Huge fire at Notre Dame cathedral, Paris

[Idaho]

Pretty sure the oak trees cut down wouldn't agree with you. They could have used trees that grow faster instead.

If we take silence as acquiescence, then I think they would.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

If we take silence as acquiescence, then I think they would.

Human language centric view.

 

[existentialist]

Just seen this on the news and it made me sad. Stood for centuries (((trees)))
French oaks from once-royal forest felled to rebuild Notre Dame spire

TBF, sticking them in a cathedral roof is about the most guaranteed way that they might serve as long in use as they took to produce...

 

[Calamity1971]

TBF, sticking them in a cathedral roof is about the most guaranteed way that they might serve as long in use as they took to produce...

It would have been fairer to leave the fantastic specimen alive. The bloody spire will be clad in lead anyway.

 

[Calamity1971]

Nonsense. Trees are a great, sustainable building material. Just plant a few more to replace them.

Oak is hardly known for its rapid growth.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

It would have been fairer to leave the fantastic specimen alive. The bloody spire will be clad in lead anyway.

They could rebuild the spire using balsa wood - nice and light so low structural loading. Or MDF - cheap and cheerful.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Oak is hardly known for its rapid growth.

Maybe demolish the church and plant oak trees in its place - a better use of the land in every sense.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Commission Ikea to make a spire.

 

[Calamity1971]

They could rebuild the spire using balsa wood - nice and light so low structural loading. Or MDF - cheap and cheerful.

. They can clad the D of E for all I care. No, it has be oak.

 

[Calamity1971]

Commission Ikea to make a spire.

I know someone getting rid of a Billy bookcase if they can do owt with that.

 

[Idaho]

Oak is hardly known for its rapid growth.

Depends on your timescale.

 

[spring-peeper]

Pretty sure the oak trees cut down wouldn't agree with you. They could have used trees that grow faster instead.

Trees that grow quickly are not as strong as those that take longer.

 

[spring-peeper]

They could rebuild the spire using balsa wood - nice and light so low structural loading. Or MDF - cheap and cheerful.

Again, balsa wood is not strong enough.

and - MDF is just wood chips and glue.

 

[Duncan2]

If the end result looks a lot like the original structure I don't think many folks will subscribe to the view that this is a waste of good trees.Certainly very few French folk?

 

[Calamity1971]

Again, balsa wood is not strong enough.

and - MDF is just wood chips and glue.

I don't think farmerbarleymow was being entirely serious.

 

[spring-peeper]

I don't think farmerbarleymow was being entirely serious.

Actually, I wasn't picking on farmerbarleymow.

I read his replies as options for using the french forest.
I wish there was another option, but oak is one of the strongest woods.

After the fire, Canada offered to give them the oak to restore the building.
The offer was turned down.
The French wanted it built with French oak.

 

[stdP]

From the "The Romance of Maintenance" episode of "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand (incidentally, well worth seeking out if you fancy watching a mid-90s Lambeth social housing maintenance team):

My friend Gregory Bateson used to tell the story of the oak beams of New College, Oxford. This is how it went.

New College was founded in the late 14th century. It had, like other colleges at Oxford, a great dining hall with oak beams across the top. These might be 2 feet square, 40 feet long. A century ago, some busy entomologist poked at the beams and discovered that they were full of beetles. This was reported to the college council, who met in some dismay because where would they find beams of that calibre nowadays?

One of the junior fellows stuck his neck out and suggested there might be some oak on the college lands, so they called in the college forester who of course had not been near the college for years, and asked him about oak. And he pulled his furlock and said:
"Well sirs, we was wonderin' when you'd be askin'"

On further inquiry it was discovered that when the college was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the college hall when they became beetly - because oak beams always become beetly in the end. This plan had been passed down from one forester to the next for 500 years - "You don't cut them oaks, them's for the college hall".

A nice story. That's the way to run a culture.

I can't see France being drastically different from the UK in this respect as it's a truth about forestry and building maintenance that's millennia-old - usually curtailed only by short-sighted thinkers with a lack of continuity of respect for maintenance. The french forest will undoubtedly have had oaks planted in it for the replacement of things like Notre Dame. Many country estates followed this principle of growing the wood that would be needed for their own ongoing maintenance.

However, oak and lead is obviously the wrong choice. Really they should be using sheets of depleted uranium plate bolted on to a frame of dried baguettes.

 

[WouldBe]

After the fire, Canada offered to give them the oak to restore the building.
The offer was turned down.
The French wanted it built with French oak.

That rules out using Lego then.

 

[teuchter]

From the "The Romance of Maintenance" episode of "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand (incidentally, well worth seeking out if you fancy watching a mid-90s Lambeth social housing maintenance team):


I can't see France being drastically different from the UK in this respect as it's a truth about forestry and building maintenance that's millennia-old - usually curtailed only by short-sighted thinkers with a lack of continuity of respect for maintenance. The french forest will undoubtedly have had oaks planted in it for the replacement of things like Notre Dame. Many country estates followed this principle of growing the wood that would be needed for their own ongoing maintenance.

However, oak and lead is obviously the wrong choice. Really they should be using sheets of depleted uranium plate bolted on to a frame of dried baguettes.

Looks like this is on youtube... I will put it on my watch list.

 

[stdP]

Looks like this is on youtube... I will put it on my watch list.

I believe my copy was sourced from Brand himself who uploaded his tapes to google video (remember that?) before disappearing, glad to see it's resurfaced.

 

[Calamity1971]

Actually, I wasn't picking on farmerbarleymow.

I read his replies as options for using the french forest.
I wish there was another option, but oak is one of the strongest woods.

After the fire, Canada offered to give them the oak to restore the building.
The offer was turned down.
The French wanted it built with French oak.

I never accused you of picking on him. I was merely pointing out he was taking the piss.
I haven't seen where he argued for not using French forest oak? only his tongue in cheek options not to use oak.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

That rules out using Lego then.

That raises the question of how big could you build something entirely out of lego before it loses structural integrity.

 

[maomao]

how big could you build something entirely out of lego before it loses structural integrity.

From Reddit:

The structural integrity of a Lego building depends mostly on the maximum weight that the Legos on the bottom can withstand without caving. If the walls of the Lego blocks on the bottom cave, the whole building would come toppling down.

So, I’ll take you back to a study that determined the maximum weight/pressure that a single Lego can withstand. Some years ago, the company did a stress test with a 2x2 Lego. The machine determined that this block can withstand 4,240 Newtons of pressure – which translates to 953 lbs. If we divide that by the mass of a single brick, then we estimate that 375,000 Lego bricks could be stacked on top of one another before the bottom brick caves. 375,000 Lego bricks totals 2.23 miles in height (360,000 m).

The height of a single 2x2 Lego block is 9.6 mm with a lengh and width of 0.005m and 0.015m respectively (0.00008 m2). The Empire State Building is only 443m tall - not even a full mile, and takes up a square footage of 8,094 m2 , so building one out of Legos is absolutely feasible.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

They could build buildings out of lego in earthquake zones, and just build them again if they collapse.

 

[Sprocket.]

They could build buildings out of lego in earthquake zones, and just build them again if they collapse.

Consider though the amount of knee injuries suffered by first responders having to kneel on the scattered bricks!

 

[Crispy]

The current record stands at 35m

Tallest structure built with LEGO® bricks

www.guinnessworldrecords.com

But it's cable stayed which I consider to be cheating.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

The current record stands at 35m

Tallest structure built with LEGO® bricks

www.guinnessworldrecords.com

But it's cable stayed which I consider to be cheating.

If they'd built it with a significantly larger footprint they wouldn't need cables. That thing looks far too skinny to stay up in the slightest of breezes.

 

[Brainaddict]

From the "The Romance of Maintenance" episode of "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand (incidentally, well worth seeking out if you fancy watching a mid-90s Lambeth social housing maintenance team):


I can't see France being drastically different from the UK in this respect as it's a truth about forestry and building maintenance that's millennia-old - usually curtailed only by short-sighted thinkers with a lack of continuity of respect for maintenance. The french forest will undoubtedly have had oaks planted in it for the replacement of things like Notre Dame. Many country estates followed this principle of growing the wood that would be needed for their own ongoing maintenance.

However, oak and lead is obviously the wrong choice. Really they should be using sheets of depleted uranium plate bolted on to a frame of dried baguettes.

I was suspicious of this story immediately just because 500 years is the wrong timeframe. Most oaks would be well past their prime for timber at that point, with lots of pockets of decay.

So I checked and sure enough: David Cameron's tale of Oxford college's trees is a myth, says academic

 

[stdP]

I was suspicious of this story immediately just because 500 years is the wrong timeframe. Most oaks would be well past their prime for timber at that point, with lots of pockets of decay.

So I checked and sure enough: David Cameron's tale of Oxford college's trees is a myth, says academic

Aye, never really considered it wholly accurate and more of a parable that's been passed around and embellished as the years have gone by. I grew up in the shadow of a local stately home run by the national trust and their foresters all had similar tales about particular batches of trees. Some of the beams in the roof of the house needed oaks of a particular shape to avoid cutting across the grain and when they redid the roof in the 80s there was already a map of suitably shaped trees. But I like Brand's way of telling it better.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I've never thought about it this way.



(((Legos people)))