Krohn Conservatory

Krohn Conservatory

Image by elycefeliz
www.cincinnatiparks.com/

www.cincinnatiparks.com/krohn-conservatory/krohn-history/...

Krohn Conservatory is a conservatory located in Eden Park within Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1930, the Cincinnati Park Board decided to replace its old greenhouse buildings with a modern plant conservatory. The new building was designed in the Art Deco style and was built of aluminum and glass. The Eden Park Conservatory opened to the general public on Sunday, March 26, 1933. On April 30, 1937, the Board officially named the new conservatory the Irwin M. Krohn Conservatory, in honor of Irwin Krohn's 25 years of service on the Board of Park Commissioners.

Today Krohn Conservatory houses a collection of more than 1,000 different species of plants in six permanent display areas. The Tropical House and Palm House are like mini rainforests, with ferns, chocolate, vanilla, and guava in the Tropical House, and palm trees, vines, and a 20-foot waterfall in the Palm House. The Floral Display House has a collection of citrus trees and changing seasonal exhibits. The Bonsai Collection houses beautiful tiny trees, many of them in peak seasonal color. The Orchid House, between the Bonsai and Desert Houses, displays many species of orchids in perfect bloom.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krohn_Conservatory

www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cityparks/pages/-3452-/

Woodsong

Image by Stewf
Photo by Bo Parker, courtesy Modernism magazine.

The Woodsong residence designed by Alfred Browning Parker in the 1970s is integrated with the surrounding tropical forest. It was named one of the ten best houses in the world by Wallpaper in 2005.

See more house and swimming pool porn at The Mid-Century Modernist.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: Northrop P-61C Black Widow

Image by Chris Devers
Compare & contrast:

Northrop P-61C Black widow:
* Front view
* Above view

Star Wars ARC-170 Fighter:
* Official page
* Wikia
* Wikipedia
* Toy review

I put it to you that they're the SAME THING.

* twin engines
* double-cockpit in front
* gunner's cockpit in back
* broad wing coming out from the middle

• • • • •

See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.

Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy | Northrop P-61C Black Widow:

The P-61 Black Widow was the first U.S. aircraft designed to locate and destroy enemy aircraft at night and in bad weather, a feat made possible by the use of on-board radar. The prototype first flew in 1942. P-61 combat operations began just after D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Black Widows flew deep into German airspace, bombing and strafing trains and road traffic. Operations in the Pacific began at about the same time. By the end of World War II, Black Widows had seen combat in every theater and had destroyed 127 enemy aircraft and 18 German V-1 buzz bombs.

The Museum’s Black Widow, a P-61C-1-NO, was delivered to the Army Air Forces in July 1945. It participated in cold-weather tests, high-altitude drop tests, and in the National Thunderstorm Project, for which the top turret was removed to make room for thunderstorm monitoring equipment.

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

Manufacturer:
Northrop Aircraft Inc.

Date:
1943

Country of Origin:
United States of America

Dimensions:
Overall: 450 x 1500cm, 10637kg, 2000cm (14ft 9 3/16in. x 49ft 2 9/16in., 23450.3lb., 65ft 7 3/8in.)

Long Description:
The P-61 Black Widow was the first United States aircraft designed from the start to find and destroy other aircraft at night and in bad weather. It served in combat for only the final year of World War II but flew in the European, Mediterranean, Pacific, and China-Burma-India theaters. Black Widow crews destroyed 127 enemy aircraft and 18 robot V-1 buzz bombs.

Jack Northrop's big fighter was born during the dark days of the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz in 1940. British successes against German daylight bombers forced the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) to shift to night bombing. By the time Royal Air Force (RAF) Spitfires could launch, climb out, and then try to intercept these raids, the bombers crews had usually dropped their loads and turned for home. An aircraft was needed to patrol the skies over England for up to seven hours during the night, and then follow radar vectors to attack German aircraft before they reached their target. U.S. Army Air Corps officers noted this requirement and decided that America must have a night fighter if and when it entered the war.

The Army awarded a contract to Northrop on January 30, 1941. The resulting design featured twin tail booms and rudders for stability when the aircraft closed in behind an intruder. It was a large aircraft with a big fuel load and two powerful engines. Armament evolved into four 20 mm cannons mounted in the belly firing forward and a powered, remote-controlled turret on top of the center fuselage equipped with four .50 cal. machine guns. The three-man crew consisted of the pilot, a gunner seated behind him, and a radar observer/gunner at the rear behind the gun turret. Only the pilot could fire the cannons but any of the three could operate the machine guns.

Simultaneously, work was proceeding, at a laboratory run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop the airborne radar set. The Army tested an early design in a Douglas B-18 in 1941. The much-improved SCR-520 set was ready by early 1942. Meanwhile, Army enthusiasm for the XP-61 produced another contract on March 10, 1941, for 13 service-test YP-61s. Even before these airplanes flew, Northrop received orders for 410 production machines! Northrop test pilot Vance Breeze flew the aircraft on May 26, 1942. Although the Black Widow was nearly as large as a medium bomber, it was a true fighter. The only prohibited flight maneuvers were outside loops, sustained inverted flight, and deliberate spins.

As Northrop advanced the design toward production, supply problems arose and modifications became necessary. The 4-gun top turret was the same type fitted to the top forward position on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress (see NASM collection) and that bomber had production priority over the P-61. As a result, several hundred P-61s did not have this turret. Those that did experienced buffeting when the turret was traversed from side to side and a fix took time. By October 1943, the first P-61s were coming off the line. Training started immediately, and the first night fighters arrived in the European Theater by March 1944. Combat operations began just after D-Day (June 6) and the Black Widows quickly departed from their original role as defensive interceptors and became aggressors. They flew deep into German airspace, bombing and strafing trains and road traffic and making travel difficult for the enemy by day and at night.

P-61s arrived in the Pacific Theater at about the same time as the European Black Widows. For years, the Japanese had operated lone bombers over Allied targets at night and now U. S. fighters could locate and attack them. However, on June 30, 1944, a Mitsubishi BETTY (see NASM collection) became the first P-61 kill in the Pacific. Soon, Black Widows controlled the night skies. On the night of August 14-15, a P-61 named "Lady in the Dark" by her crew encountered an intruding Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon) OSCAR (see NASM collection) and eventually forced it into the sea without firing a shot. Although the war was officially over, no one was sure that all of the Japanese had heard the message and stopped fighting. The American night fighters flew again the next night and "Lady in the Dark" again found a target. It was a Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki (Demon) TOJO and the fighters maneuvered wildly as they attempted to gain an advantage. The P-61 crew lost and reacquired the Ki-44 several times then finally lost it for good and returned to base. The next day ground troops found the wrecked TOJO. In the darkness, Lady in the Dark's crew had forced the Japanese pilot to fly into the ground, again without firing a shot.

With the war over, the Army cancelled further production. Northrop had built 706 aircraft including 36 with a highly modified center fuselage. These F-15As (later redesignated RF-61C) mounted a number of cameras in the nose and proved able reconnaissance platforms. Many of these airplanes participated in the first good aerial photographic survey of the Pacific islands. A few, plus some special purpose P-61s, stayed in active service until 1950.

NASM's Black Widow is a P-61C-1-NO, U.S. Army Air Forces serial number 43-8330. Northrop delivered it to the Army on July 28, 1945. By October 18, this P-61 was flying at Ladd Field, Alaska, in cold weather tests and it remained there until March 30, 1946. This airplane later moved to Pinecastle Air Force Base, Florida, for participation in the National Thunderstorm Project. The project's goal was to learn more about thunderstorms and to use this knowledge to better protect civil and military airplanes that operated near them. The U. S. Weather Bureau and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) undertook the study with cooperation from the Army Air Forces and Navy. With its radar and particular flight characteristics, the P-61 was capable of finding the most turbulent regions of a storm, penetrating them, and returning crew and instruments intact for detailed study.

Pinecastle personnel removed the guns and turret from 43-8330 in July 1946 to make room for new equipment. In September, the aircraft moved to Clinton County Army Air Base, Ohio, where it remained until January 1948. The Air Force then assigned the aircraft to the Flight Test Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. After declaring the airplane surplus in 1950, the Air Force stored it at Park Ridge, Illinois, on October 3 along with important aircraft destined for the National Air Museum.

But 43-8830 was not done flying. NACA asked the Smithsonian to lend them the aircraft for use in another special program. The committee wanted to investigate how aerodynamic shapes behaved when dropped from high altitude. The Black Widow arrived at the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Naval Air Station Moffett Field, California, on February 14, 1951. NACA returned the aircraft and delivered it to the Smithsonian at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on August 10, 1954. When the engines shut down for the last time, this P-61 had accumulated only 530 total flight hours. Smithsonian personnel trucked it to the Paul Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland. In 2006, the aircraft was preserved and assembled at the Udvar-Hazy Center. The three different paint schemes from its past service life have been revealed by carefully removing individual layers of paint.

The Botanic Gardens In Glasnevin

Image by infomatique
Restoration of the Curvilinear Range of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin

Information provided by BGCI
www.bgci.org/worldwide/article/175/

The Curvilinear Range is the most significant wrought and cast iron building in Ireland and is one of the most important nineteenth century glasshouses surviving in Europe today.

In 1990, the Range was in a state of advanced decay and structural instability which required it to be closed to the public. The combination or basement vaults, insufficient foundations and inherent structural problems arising from the enlargement of the range in 1869 led to the deformation of the structure and glazing bars. The interior tropical climate caused a rate of metal corrosion four times that which would normally be experienced in external Irish conditions. Prior to restoration some 300 glass panes a year were breaking due to the corrosion and instability of the original structure.
History

The Curvilinear Range of today developed in a piece-meal fashion over a period from 1843 to 1869. The involvement of Richard Turner gave the design a coherence which such ad hoc approaches seldom achieve. Turner designed the first 1843 section of the glasshouse but lost the tender to build it. A contractor named Clancy was the lowest tenderer but he underestimated the cost and went out of business after taking twice the tender period to complete the work. The Clancy name is today visible over the south door of the East Wing. Thereafter the Royal Dublin Society, who then managed the Botanic Gardens employed Turner to complete the work with their architect Darley for the remaining stages.

Turner's glasshouses reflect the industrial age in its most advanced form with standardised components and prefabricated elements manufactured off-site for later site assembly. This use of wrought and cast iron was at the leading edge of building technology in the mid-nineteenth century. The repeal of punitive taxes on glass in the 1840s, coupled with French innovation in glass production gave Turner the option of using curved glass in long lengths.

Up until that time, the shape of glasshouses was rudimentary and rectilinear as timber was the predominant construction material. With the intrinsic architectural and engineering properties of wrought and cast iron, Turner gave us a sophisticated and curvilinear range of glasshouses which were avant garde in their design and innovative in their technology.

Richard Turner was born in 1798 and was 83 years old when he died on 31st October 1881. He descended from a long line of Dublin ironmongers to become the greatest ironmaster of his day. In 1834, Turner built his new Hammersmith Ironworks in the Dublin suburb of Ballsbridge. Turner is principally associated with his spectacular glasshouses in the Belfast Botanic Garden, Northern Ireland (1839), Glasnevin (1843-1869) and at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, U.K. (1848) but he also designed and manufactured some mundane things like boundary railings for Trinity College, Dublin, boilers, cisterns and even bedsteads.
Solution

Cast iron was the dominant building iron from 1730 to 1870 but from 1830 the importance of wrought iron increased steadily with the building of the railways. Cast iron susceptibility to fracture under tension gave rise to the use of wrought iron for long lengths of railway track. The superior compressive tensile ratio of wrought iron also lent itself to small structural sections and the extra design and technological potential it offered.

Unlike stone or brick with their own history of research and restoration techniques no such precedent existed for wrought and cast iron restoration. Wrought iron was replaced by mild steel in building at the beginning of the 20th century and is no longer available. This led the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to replace their original cast and wrought iron Palm House (designed by Decimus Burton, with modifications by Richard Turner) with a replica stainless steel building in the 1980s.

The problem of producing 20 different complex shaped glazing bars of good quality wrought iron to fine tolerances in small batch sizes at an economic rate for repair purposes was solved by means of a new forging process, named drop forging. Recycled wrought iron was heated, then placed on a profiled anvil and beaten into shape by a pneumatic hammer. Approximately 4,500 hammer blows per linear metre were required to match Turner's profiles. This was a key breakthrough.

The use of blacksmiths and new mechanized forging combined to make scrap wrought iron available for reuse. New wrought iron welding technology combined with exceptionally skilled welders enabled the grafting of new inserts where corrosion damage had occurred. Over 10.6 km of wrought iron is used in the glazing bars. Ductile cast iron was used for broken cast iron columns and gutters with the damaged item used as a mould framemwork.

A special system of metal work quality control testing including microstructure, spectrographic chemical analysis, tensile and bend testing was instigated to identify old metal fatigue fractures, and ensure that new restoration work was of a consistent quality.

Due to the doubling in width of the east and west wing in 1868 the structure had become inherently unstable. This problem was solved by inserting a new structural brace in ductile cast iron which integrates the structural support with Turner's original pilasters and the new planting troughs and heating ducts.

Great care was taken to match the imperfections of mid-nineteenth century glass. The glass was specially curved to suit the nine different radii of the roof. All edges were rounded to reduce stress cracking. The end of each pane was lapped and scalloped to assist rain run-off. A special system of structural glazing was used to meet modern safety requirements. There are 8,427 panes of glass; 18.129 m of honed glass edge; 5,973 glass scallop ends and 15.5 km of structural glazing mastic.

A sample cross section of all the original layers of paint showed that it was equivalent in thickness to 22 sheets of photocopying paper. By using advanced modern paint technology, rather than reproduction lead based paints, it was possible to be more environmentally friendly, while at the same time applying a paint system of very low permeability which is vital to the long term protection of metal work in high humidity glasshouses. Six coats of specialist paint were applied in the carefully controlled environment of the off-site paint workshop with only touching up and the application of a final decorative coat on-site.

The performance of the services to the glasshouse were improved and automated without infringing our conservation and restoration criteria. The new elevated fogging and ventilation system was carefully designed to avoid a clash with the original structure. Different plant environments are catered for by the use of computer controlled temperature and humidity sensors.

The completed works include:

* The faithful restoration the Curvilinear Range
* The provision of modern heating, ventilation and humidification services to international horticultural standards
* The provision of a new structure to the rear of the north wall, including a new underground plant room and a new single storey building to house new staff facilities
* Refurbishemnt of the vaults under the east and west wings
* Restoration of the Fern House to the rear of the East Passage
* The relocation of potting sheds, fuel tanks and horticultural bedding material away from the rear of the glasshouses thereby allowing public access around the building and opening up panoramic views from this area over the pond and river Tolka for the first time

The restored Curvilinear Range can once again play its full part in the Irish National Botanic Garden's role as a vital national institution involved with the scientific research, conservation, education and display of plants.

Haitian roof

Image by chiptape
Corrugated metal roof on a Haitian building in 2008.