Showing posts with label concrete. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concrete. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Japanese Tunnels
There are a lot of tunnels in Japan. Not surprising really considering how mountainous it is. The Japanese have become the worlds experts on tunnel construction and have built the longest transport tunnel in the world, the 54k train tunnel connecting Honshu with Hokkaido.
In the 1930's there was a plan to connect Tokyo with the rest of the empire with a high-speed train line that would pass under the sea from Japan to Korea. Incidentally, this is the origin of the Bullet Train.
The little train tunnel above is on our local train line and was dug by hand.
This pedestrian tunnel with hi-tech light show connects Tenmangu Shrine with the National Museum in Dazaifu, Fukuoka.
This somewhat older hand-dug tunnel connects the village of Kimach in Izumo with the sandstone quarry on the other side of the hill.
This long straight pedestrian tunnel goes under the sea and connects Kyushu with Honshu.
What japan also has is thousands and thousands of kilometres of road tunnels. Many of these continue to be built on little used roads and simply "straighten" existing roads that follow rivers.
Which brings me to the subject of tomorrows post.....
Labels:
concrete,
construction,
tunnel
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Concrete Wabi Sabi: Virgin tetrapods
Concrete Wabi Sabi: Virgin tetrapods
I like this photo because without any scale reference, one could be looking at something architectural, a stadium maybe.But in fact, it's just a line of new tetrapods waiting to go in place to "protect" the riverbank.
New concrete can have an aesthetic quality, in my opinion.
There are tetrapod production sites all over the place. Mostly they are made in situ, you just need the molds and a constant stream of cement trucks.
I haven't been able to find the numbers, but I'm willing to bet that Japan leads the world in the number of cement trucks per capita.
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