Take a long chain by each end and hold it up in front of you. Gravity will pull it – naturally – into a catenary curve. Invert that curve and you have a catenary arch. Arches with this most efficient self-supporting geometry have been an architectural staple through the ages, used in vernacular, Medieval, Gothic and Renaissance architecture, and most notably and comprehensively in early modern times by Antoni Gaudi, particularly at his famous Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Though they are not common in western domestic architecture, catenary arches have been used by architect William Smart to stunning effect in his home above the Smart Design Office in Sydney’s Waterloo.
Smart has lived above his office before. Prior to this, it was in a former boarding house transformed into a four-storey home/office building on a corner in Surry Hills. This new project took three years to complete. Situated at the end of a side street off a main road, the foundation was a solidly built early-twentieth-century brick factory with
