While most of the supertall building boom spotlight has been placed China and the UAE over the past few months, there’s an even more staggering development happening much, much closer to home. At least four 1,000-foot-plus skyscrapers are set to rise along (or adjacent to) West 57th Street over the next few years, each of the tall enough to change the city’s skyline forever.
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Seeing an IMAX movie is impressive, sure, but what’s even more impressive is watching an IMAX theater get built. The world’s largest no less. It’s a feat.
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In London this week, a parabolic "death ray" of sunshine—reflected off of London’s newest skyscraper—is destroying luxury cars, starting fires, and frying eggs for comedic effect (oh, England). It’s a sensational story, but this isn’t the first time an architectural laser has literally burned the hair off of passersby.
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Building a road might be harder than you’d think
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We’ve heard about plenty of promising electronic applications for miracle material graphene from headphones
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There’s way more to building a road than just slathering some asphalt all over the ground. The process is actually pretty involved, with a bunch of steps you probably hadn’t thought of. And even a little bit of art to it.
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Not too long ago, a couple of MIT scientists asked themselves a lofty question: "Can you 3-D print an airplane?" It didn’t take long for them to realize that 3D printing anything on that scale was impractical. But 3D-printing thousands of small, Lego-like building blocks? That could work.
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Imagine if we had robots that could not only tear a building down, but also recycle it. Large building projects would go much faster and they would likely be cheaper and safer too. This new concept in robotics may just improve the efficiency of building demolition and recycling. It comes from Swedish student designer Omer Haciomeroglu who says that ERO is a smart recycling robot like Wall-E.
He states that ERO would “efficiently disassemble concrete structures without any waste, dust or separation and enable reclaimed building materials to be reused for new prefabricated concrete buildings.” In other words it could be a dream come true for the construction sector.
It uses high-powered water jets to crack the concrete. The cement and water is then sucked up and separated. The water is recycled back into the system, while clean aggregate is packed and sent to concrete precast stations for reuse. The rebar can then be cleaned and cut on the spot for reuse as well.
A fleet of ERO robots working together would be able to scan the area and plan their demolition/recycling. The robots could “literally erase a building”. It is a great idea, and I hope it sees action one day.
Demolishing a building is a big, messy pain in the neck. Dynamite is loud and dangerous. Wrecking balls are heavy and dangerous. Why not just get a robot to do the work?
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New York City’s Metro Transit Authority is still plugging away on its giant project to bring the 7 train into far west Manhattan, and the scope of the construction is just as awe-inspiring as ever. The MTA just put out a crop of new pictures on Flickr, and we just can’t help but see a slight comparison to a certain, classic Half-Life level of old.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
