If you're going to put a multi-story pendulum in a building, you're obviously going to show it off. And what better way to do so than by putting it next to an eye-catching staircase -- steel-framed, of course!
This was the path taken by Chaminade High School, a prestigious Catholic college preparatory school for boys in Mineola, N.Y. The school recently opened its new three-story, 34,000-sq.-ft Science, Research and Technology Center to enhance its existing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum.
The building's signature design element is the two-level, open-riser, steel stair that wraps the entrance atrium -- one side of which is a living wall comprised of plants, mosses and lichens -- and surrounds a Foucault pendulum intended to provide a perpetual demonstration of scientific concepts and an inspiration to students. The Foucault pendulum, named for its inventor, French physicist Leon Foucault, was first conceived in 1851 as an experiment to demonstrate the earth's rotation.
To continue reading this and other articles in the March 2019 edition of Modern Steel Construction magazine, click here.