Photo: yahoo
In a feat of amazing technological engineering a firm in Shanghai China have moved a five-story building through the streets to its new location. The 85-year-old Lagena Primary School in Huangpu district could be 'walking' through the city streets to its new location, a feat that amazed onlookers and the hundreds of thousands that have now watched the video online.
The company, Shanghai Evolution Shift, used 200 mobile supports to life the building and then transport it. The technology allows old and ancient buildings to be moved without any damage to them or their surroundings. The building weighs a monumental 7,600 tonnes but as the video below shows the team of engineers and their new technology moved the whole school with ease.
Lan Wuji, chief technical supervisor of the project for Shanghai Evolution Shift, said that the supports work like robotic legs that take almost any building from a to b. He said:
"It's like giving the building crutches so it can stand up and then walk."
Now that the building is moved, the vacant space will be used to build office blocks. What makes the company unique is that unlike previous mechanisms used to transport whole buildings, Shanghai Evolution Shift can move buildings in a curved manner, meaning it can much more easily weave in and out of obstacles. Lan Wuji added:
"During my 23 years of working in this area, I haven't seen any other company that can move structures in a curve."
The team may very well have many more projects ahead as China maintains an economic growth rate far above the Western world, despite the ongoing pandemic. In the first decade of the 21st century alone, China built more houses than there are total houses in the United Kingdom and could build a city the size of Rome every two weeks. The average Chinese person has living space now twice the size of what they had just 20 years ago. While that boom cannot be sustained forever, the rate of construction remains almost unfathomable.
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