"Don" one-if-by-land.concord.com wrote in message ...

(snip)
Can you describe the difference between *method* and *form* as you have used
them below?

"Christopher K. Egan" wrote in message
m...
Don...again I agree with your philosophical support for Per the
visionary...but the fact is that ...no...he has not suggested a
"method". He has only suggested a form...and he doesn't know how it
can be made or of what it can be made.

Yes I can describe the difference between "method" and "form"....and
"material" as well.

To say that a building shall be an arch is to describe its "form."

To say that the arch shall be made of stone is to describe its
"material."

To say that the stone arch shall be built by cutting stone blocks from
a particular quarry in a size that they can be handled by a human
mason, and that these shall be transported by horse-drawn wagon to the
site, and that carpenters will build wood framework to hold the stones
in place until the key stone is set...and that the stones shall be
lifted by a crane using horse power and mechanical advantage....and
that they will be set in mortar with metal clips ....that is to
describe the "method."

Our friend Per has suggested a form...but neither "material" nor
"method". His references to plywood or steel do not explain how this
would be done at the large scale he is proposing. In fact his work
reminds me of the work of thousands of 2nd year architecture students
in the 1970s who proposed similar forms to his in schools around the
world. When asked "what material do you propose?" the universal answer
was "concrete!" because the students didn't really know what to use
and they had heard that concrete could be made in many forms.
However....if Per's proposal is to use concrete, than it probably
would not be cut by computer-operated means as he has suggested...but
would be cast with carefully fabricated steel reinforcing in a highly
labor-intensive technology. Similarly, if he is suggesting steel,
then is he suggesting steel plates that are 12" to 30" thick as is
implied by the images? Don't you think that gets a bit extreme when it
comes to cost? Or would these really be carefully crafted steel
hollow boxes requiring a lot of expensive welding?


Christopher