
The Spherical Solution - mpweiher
https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/our-story/sydney-opera-house-history/spherical-solution.html
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twic
Impressive that the article manages to be that long without once mentioning
the name of the engineer who ran the project:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rice#Sydney_Opera_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rice#Sydney_Opera_House)

[https://www.arup.com/perspectives/traces-of-peter-
rice](https://www.arup.com/perspectives/traces-of-peter-rice)

There's a chapter about the Sydney Opera House in his autobiography.

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jcriddle4
Pictures of the actual building on wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House)

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emmelaich
Picture of Saarinen's TWA building at JFK which helped finalise the form. Now
a hotel.

[https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/17/twa-hotel-eero-saarinen-
jf...](https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/17/twa-hotel-eero-saarinen-jfk-airport-
new-york-city/)

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moultano
I would love a more detailed description of what the solution actually was.
Ideally with some math.

~~~
twic
The solution was for all the shells to be spherical patches with the same
radius (75.2 metres - not sure if that's internal or external).

That's what these sentences are getting at:

 _But now it struck him that as they were so similar, each could perhaps be
derived from a single, constant form, such as the plane of a sphere._

 _By finding the parts of a sphere that best suited the existing shapes of the
shells, each new form could be extracted._

The advantage of that is that all the shells can be built by assembling some
number of identical parts. If you have a small tile whose curvature is 1 /
75.2 metres, then you can cover all of the shells with those tiles [1]. If you
have a section of girder whose curvature is the same, you can support each
shell on networks of those girders.

[1] Okay, so you might need two shapes of tile to cover the surface, although
if you're prepared to do some trimming you can get away with one!

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juliangamble
You can build it out of Lego [https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/sydney-opera-
house-10234](https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/sydney-opera-house-10234)

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ncmncm
The most amazing thing about this story, repeatedly trumpeted to the skies, is
that anyone thinks there is anything to it. "Architect discovers that
standardizing the curvature of curved parts reduces expense and complication!"

Next up, spherical balls bounce straighter, and circular wheels roll smoother.
Who could ever have guessed?

