Using your words, not your hands, describe this structure to someone who can’t see it. I’ll wait.
What words came to your mind? What came to my mind first was “quonset hut”, but someone objected/pointed-out that quonset huts, while generally the same shape as this, are, well, huts–that is, enclosed structures– and are made of steel or a similarly rigid material, not fabric. Can this also go by the name quonset hut? Quonset tent, maybe? I don’t know.
What came to my mind next was “arched trusses”, but I don’t know if the arched pieces (ribs? are they ribs?) with triangle reinforcements are called trusses in this context. Roof trusses? Sure. But whole-of-structure trusses? I don’t know.
What came to my mind next-next was “guy wires”, but are the wires seemingly attaching the fabric roof/shade to the structure (and not to the ground) called that in this context? I don’t know.
If I called it an elongated event-tent, open along the sides and at the ends, would it conjure up this image? I don’t know.
Even though I can’t describe this structure with confidence, I can still play a bit with it, so there’s that.
I am not a civil engineer, so maybe it’s unsurprising that I have only a muddled puddle of half-understood terms in my head with respect to slightly oddball structures. But it’s yet another example of the curious gaps in my knowledge. What I was doing in school? What have I been doing with my learning opportunities in the 55 years since?
I don’t know.
I plead guilty to having a special knowledge of this structure that many of your followers won’t.
I would describe it as delicious!!
Jim R – 🙂 Fair enough (as the 20 to 25 cohort is wont to say).
My son, who’s 50 would love to read your comment Isabel. He says “fair enough” a lot.
Marion – Hahaha. He’s just a youngster at heart, I guess.
I, too, would have started with “shaped like a quonset hut,” but covered in a tough fabric left open on the sides. The purpose appears to have been to provide a sheltered eating area for the clients of “The Burger and Shake” restaurant. Is the restaurant hidden from the camera? Or is the tented surface merely an ad? The picnic tables could be emergency accommodations for folks using an adjacent park or hiking area. However, if it was plunked down in the middle of Nowhere, it makes one wonder why.
Laurna – Glad to know that I’m not alone in seeing a quonset hut, sort of. The seating area is across a yard from the restaurant itself, which hosts maybe 3 booths. I expect most go outside to eat, during the season. 🙂
To borrow a line from Henry Fonda in “On Golden Pond,” it’s a tent, Isabel, a tent!
Here’s the reference: The phrase “it’s a tent, Martha, a tent” is a common line from the 1981 movie, “On Golden Pond,” spoken by the character Norman Thayer Jr. (played by Henry Fonda) to his wife, Ethel (played by Katharine Hepburn). In the scene, Norman is frustrated with the family’s old tent, which he finds inconvenient.
Jim T – 🙂 I have not seen that movie. My movie lines come more from the movies I watched with my sons in the 1980s, mostly. But I agree – it’s a tent! A quonset tent.
When I was 5 or so, my family was driving in the country and I saw what I now know was a metal quonset hut and I asked my mother, “What came in that big can?”
Perhaps that’s the way to describe it to a blind person: half a really big can
Barbara – 🙂 That would work for me, I think. You were a perceptive five-year-old.
Isabel – how about an open- sided Sprung shelter?
Sprung shelters are the current more modern version of a quonset hut
John – I would buy that for a nickel. This website refers to “all-weather tension fabric buildings” and that seems right. Thanks! I do like to stay current . . .