Architecture
The study of history is clearly the study of man's attempts to control his environment and his destiny. Justification of that view lies in the abundance of monuments bearing testimony to man’s need to edify himself with great buildings and grand construction schemes.
The architecture workshop looks at several of the fundamental construction methods of ancient engineers and attempts to compare and contrast cultures and projects. Standard building materials are employed at each work station for students to construct a foundation, a brick wall, a timber roof, an Egyptian Corbel Arch, a Roman arch, a post and lintel arch, a wood truss, two bridges, a pyramid wall, and a medieval church. Students will learn about the forces applied in all cases. They will evaluate different materials and their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to one another. They will measures and calculate load bearing forces of all the materials and assess their use and application in each historical case.
A work project will ask them to build a special model building using only the tools and materials available to builders through the 1800's. The model is posed as a word problem. Location, nature of the land and resources will be different for each team of builders. The problems of construction are based on a defined needs assessment for each team involving, housing, meal preparation and taking, heat and water sources, work area, large assembly area, defensive consideration, and sewage concerns. Teams can either sketch or construct their models using any computer program.
