Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

hackaday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 87 posts

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#61

Post by ttepasse »

I'm not against putting beauty and care into architecture, especially church architecture, on the contrary.

But I'm a little bit put off by the use of a gothic or neo-gothic style.

Gothic architecture was a result of particular time and place. Using it outside that place makes it look weird, like these weird copies of European site you see sometimes in Las Vegas or China. Those renders look a little bit out of place for the surrounding landscape.

One of the great things about traveling in Europe is so see how the basic format of a Church – the roman basilica – has evolved into multiple different regional (and temporal) styles and by using local architectural styles making Church architecture local. Backsteingotik in Northern Europe, Isabelline Gothic in Spain, Renaissance architecture in Italy, and so on – every one is beautiful in its own way.

I'd would have love to see a monastery which is local to the architectural styles of Wyoming but with the craftsmanship used for this. Not being wyomese (?) I don't know how that would look – Google Images suggests maybe a mixture of stone and wood – but I would have liked to see it.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#63

Post by imtringued »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #55
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I agree. Traditional medieval cathedrals were built right on the limits of the materials, skills and labour available and still took generations and sometimes still collapsed due to overambition: especially lantern crossings, which are heavy and only supported in the corners. Builders of cathedrals used the cutting edge tools and techniques of their days. If they'd de…

I think the very effort, the manual investment, was a form of sacrifice and honouring of god in itself. Ergo, this would be cheating. (atheist)

I'm not convinced an atheist would write this comment. I mean, you are literally writing about your own religious standards.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#64

Post by imtringued »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #9
fgoesbrrr wrote: post #6

I was told we can't build like that anymore.

The stones are just outer cladding. Like any large modern construction it's all poured concrete inside. You can see rebar in some of the pics

That is kind of sad. Any building using rebar won't last as long as a purely compression based structure.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#65

Post by imtringued »

curtisblaine wrote: post #25
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shocker, the Bauhaus graduates didn’t want people thinking different. ;)

Brutalism is yet another form of socialism that managed to make the world a bit sadder.

Please don't use socialism as a word for "thing I don't like".

I am so tired of this. No, I am not siding with socialists. I despise them, but I don't make the mistake of blaming bad things like me stubbing my toe on "socialism" just because I don't like a group of people.

Brutalism isn't socialism. I hope you will remember that.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#66

Post by imtringued »

ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #31
curtisblaine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because many people believe that making beautiful things is a way to praise their God. Hopefully they're entitled to spend their money the way they like.

> beautiful things My first association is "fake" - which _is_ appropriate to describe (especially the roman catholic) churches (organisations, not buildings). But I guess that that's not their intention ;) > Hopefully they're entitled to spend their money the way they like. I don't know about the US, but in Europe spending money in such a way would be heavily criticised.

I had the privilege of attending a school with a hundred year old building and back in those days it was copying an even older architectural style and it was beautiful. Meanwhile most modern university buildings were plain ugly. The old brick and mortar buildings were my favourite even though the interior was comically out of date. I.e. creaky wooden floods and seating that looks like it had a 40 year history.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#67

Post by adhesive_wombat »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #55
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I agree. Traditional medieval cathedrals were built right on the limits of the materials, skills and labour available and still took generations and sometimes still collapsed due to overambition: especially lantern crossings, which are heavy and only supported in the corners. Builders of cathedrals used the cutting edge tools and techniques of their days. If they'd de…

I think the very effort, the manual investment, was a form of sacrifice and honouring of god in itself. Ergo, this would be cheating. (atheist)

It's not as if cathedral designers did it themselves manually. They'd farm it out to legions of "biorobots", not all of whom did it solely for the love of God (not only did stonemasons like to feed their families, occasionally, though not that often, workers could even be prisoners of war). Obviously it was eventually done manually, with some animal effort, out of necessity, but I strongly doubt no computers, hydraulics, electrical power, carbide tips or pneumatics would have been used, had they been available.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#68

Post by gjsman-1000 »

imtringued wrote: post #65
curtisblaine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brutalism is yet another form of socialism that managed to make the world a bit sadder.

Please don't use socialism as a word for "thing I don't like". I am so tired of this. No, I am not siding with socialists. I despise them, but I don't make the mistake of blaming bad things like me stubbing my toe on "socialism" just because I don't like a group of people. Brutalism isn't socialism. I hope you will remember that.

Brutalism and socialism are so intertwined, it’s like saying women and people aren’t the same thing. Technically true but it’s still a stupid point.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#69

Post by adhesive_wombat »

analog31 wrote: post #56
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I agree. Traditional medieval cathedrals were built right on the limits of the materials, skills and labour available and still took generations and sometimes still collapsed due to overambition: especially lantern crossings, which are heavy and only supported in the corners. Builders of cathedrals used the cutting edge tools and techniques of their days. If they'd de…

Something I've wondered about CAD for a long time (as a non-user) is whether the sheer physical labor involved in operating the CAD software influences design choices.

It absolutely does. I've made do, even when feeling I've left a theoretically achievable ideal-to-me outcome on the table, plenty of times with what's easy to do with the tool, in MCAD tools, ECAD tools, drawing tools, as well as software tools like compilers, libraries, OSes, etc. Hell, even the choice to avoid BGA ICs because your assembly ability isn't great can easily in "as good as I can do here right now".

For a quick third-party example: the Apple Mac Mini has a very special and deliberate corner design: it's not a radius, it's a "squircle", which makes the curve blend into the straight edge. Many CAD tools don't natively or easily support this, so you see a lot of slightly less "beautiful" designs with a simple circular radius, presumably partly driven by "this was just easy in the CAD tool".

From Akin's laws: 38. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say.

Re: A medieval Gothic monastery built using CAD / CAM

#70

Post by _a_a_a_ »

imtringued wrote: post #63
_a_a_a_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the very effort, the manual investment, was a form of sacrifice and honouring of god in itself. Ergo, this would be cheating. (atheist)

I'm not convinced an atheist would write this comment. I mean, you are literally writing about your own religious standards.

Poster here - I am an atheist. I can still be sympathetic to and to an extent even understand others' belief without sharing them.
Post reply on HN