The structure we will be building in Cheverie consists of three outer shells and an interior egg that will house the camera obscura.
The construction technique that we will be using is timbrel vaulting. This technique uses the layering of brick tiles to create thin, structurally sound vaults. The shells, which are catenary arches, will be self supporting. Only minimal formwork will be needed to build the first layer of bricks. This layer will then act as the formwork for subsequent layers of bricks. Michael Ramage's article Guastavino's Vault Construction Revisited outlines this technique.
Our project will build on an earlier freelab done at Dalhousie which investigated the same technique.
