November 18, 2024

Pergola

Whether on a sidewalk or in a park, it is a beautiful green addition to the environment. Depending on the area covered by this galvanized steel tubes pergola, and its permeability, it could be: A bus shed, A place for reading and contemplation, A playground for children, and simultaneously A calisthenics place for exercising, Calisthenics post.

The above points elucidate the versatility of pergola in two aspects: the pergola can be of various sizes, from just one post hanging a cantilever, two posts supporting some shed, four posts pergola, some area covered by more than one pergola. Under each one of these various sizes pergolas, various activities can go within its beautiful green space. The galvanized steel tubes Truss Structure of the pergola is for more than one reason, beside its economy, lightness in appearance and weight, durability, easiness in assembly and dismantling:

Itself, the truss structure, is the trellis web for the creepers, a kind of the fastest growing plants.  Itself, is the exercising apparatus, namely, by its intrinsic grip-size steel tubes structure, and branching composition, this trellis structure entices, invites, and challenges the active youth passing by it to jump, hold a grip and exercise spontaneously in the natural air of a green canopy. On the sports level, this is what makes our Calisthenics Pergola more than a gym and an open-air arena of separate exercising frames, Pergola by its structure is a self-contained beautiful green one whole exercising apparatus, any additional exercising apparatus thrown under is something extra.

Truss is the number one class in structural design curriculum. The pergola expounds practically in sunlight the structural principles: geometric stability of the triangle, the geometric stability for three nonconcurring and nonparallel supports. So, Pergola not only renders a lesson in gardening art by its selected covering vines, or by holding a class under its green canopy, but also uncovers by its own structure a bold clear to the eye class about trusses and geometric stability in general. Pedagogy with Pergola within Academy.

Here, I would like to elucidate that the realization of just only one calisthenics pergola, a square four posts 8 meters by 8 meters pergola, will be not only for the benefit of the students of UW, and a beautiful example to be copied in Canada, but also, for a greener more beautiful environment anywhere, for the youth all over the world, especially for the youth in the countries that cannot afford much for sports and exercising for young people, and so miss the old wisdom “sound body, sound mind”. Showing an ideal realization for the calisthenics pergola and propagating it on the internet; delivers a good model that is versatile to be tailored for different places all over the world. If not for a healthier greener environment, and the beautiful scene of a small pergola with its cool shade, then imagine only one of its posts. A calisthenics post made by some local ironsmith in a remote village in some remote country. This spontaneous post, with some green vines over it, will allow this village youth four open air challenging exercises. Four exercises, that avoid collision of joints and avoid torsion of the spine, pull-ups in two variations, parallel dips, and iron cross, when combined with the running of football, cricket, …, running, cycling, walking forth and back from school, thoroughly flex the whole body. Some civil engineering students for affording the structural design and implementation of the pergola under the supervision of their structure professor, backed by some environment and botany students; a team of the UW enthusiast students makes beautiful, useful, versatile landmark for the UW students.

Architect Assem Hamdy