Hello, I was wondering what the best practices for anchoring a long n x 1 brick, used vertically for support, would be for maximum solidity. I need to support quite a large architectural structure above a fairly open space; the sides of the space cannot be load-bearing and so I will have pillars inside the space. For aesthetic and scale-related reasons I would like to have these pillars be no larger than 1 stud x 1 stud. I had thought of using a 1 x 16 technic brick vertically, as potentially stronger than a spindly tower of three 1 x 1 x 5 bricks, which doesn't seem like it would be particularly strong. My questions are:
1) Am I right that a single brick or beam will be better than a tower of three 1x1x5 bricks? The structure above will be approx. 30-35 bricks high, and 30 studs by 95 studs. Approximately a 30 stud by 30 stud area of this needs to be supported in this way, only using 1x1 pillars, of which I could place about 9. (The rest of the supported structure can have sturdier support as it will be hidden from view -- I would also appreciate any recommendations for this.)
2) If using a vertical beam, how to anchor it so it bears the weight properly? At first I was thinking a bracket attached to the baseplate and to two studs of the 1x16 brick. But this seems like it will be transferring the load-bearing to a sideways stud connection so this is probably no good. I could put two 2x1 bricks down either side of the vertical brick and attach the three with a technic pin, but then the vertical beam won't be touching the baseplate.
3) How about at the top? How to anchor the plates above these beams--the same way, with two bricks "straddling" the vertical brick using a pin, then build on top of these bricks?
4) If I use a long brick vertically like this, and if I use the technic holes and a pin, would there be any advantage to using a liftarm instead of a studded technic brick?
My thanks to those of you with experience with this kind of structure!
