Unfortunately the links I have are not of professional research quality, and it might be better to email an academic who specializes in architecture from before

Unfortunately the links I have are not of professional research quality, and it might be better to email an academic who specializes in architecture from before calculations. I have a couple saved bookmarks from when I first heard about it several years ago. Here's an article in /The Caius Engineer/ vol. 17 nr. 1, a student publication from kids at the Gonville & Caius College of the University of Cambridge: http://babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/engineering/engineer05/ceengdes.htm http://babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/engineering... And here's a short book review about a book which might describe a dome that was hacked together on a budget: http://www.reedsblog.com/?p=85 http://www.reedsblog.com/?p=85 I was reintroduced to this by a recent BBC series on architecture, though, and I can't figure out which one it was! It could have been Climbing Great Buildings, which had some moments where they would sneak underneath these great cathedrals and see what little bits had been "swept under the rug". But it might have also been Churches: How to Read Them. (I vaguely think it's the first because I have memories of some reference to Durham Cathedral partially collapsing, but memories of this form are notoriously unreliable.) Conclusion: we should develop ways so that we learn less by osmosis. When you learn by osmosis, it's very hard to track down actual sources for the crap you've learned, and you basically have to get lucky.