Mr Thant wrote:
On 7 July, 02:31, "Basil Jet"
wrote:
This building has a tiny octagonal ground floor with no external access.
There is an external staircase and ramp up to the large octagonal first
floor which cantilevers out on all eight sides. The second floor is the same
size as the basement. A wire fence prevents anyone from walking under the
main floor, but the space inside the fence is unused, and the fence does not
support the weight of the first floor. Can anyone imagine why a library
might be cantilevered like this?

Smaller foundation and therefore cheaper? A lot like Buckminster
Fuller's Dymaxion House concept:

http://www.bfi.org/images/content/fu...ax/dymax4d.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house

(having toured one - yes, the whole structure creaks as you move
around)


Smaller doesn't always mean cheaper, as the smaller footprint usually
means that the foundation has to be immensely stronger in order to cope
with the forces that a more widespread foundation finds almost trivial
to deal with.