Archinect - News

Japanese construction company to build dam with automated robots

2020-07-28T11:55:00-04:00

Japanese contractor Obayashi has started to build a dam almost entirely with robots, addressing the industry's labor shortage and aging workforce. The site of the trial project is a concrete dam in Mie Prefecture, on the southeast coast of Japan's main island. The 84-meter-high structure is slated for completion in March 2023.

According to Nikkei, Obayashi has developed automated equipment to stack concrete layers to form the 334-meter-wide dam with virtually every process for constructing the dam involving some form of automation. Those process include the initial work of establishing the foundation, and pouring concrete to form the body, Nikkei reports. "By transferring expert techniques to machines, we're able to analyze what was once implicit knowledge," said Akira Naito, head of Obayashi's dam technology unit in a statement.

In the spirit of Ponti

2016-12-30T00:18:00-05:00

DAM has spent considerable sums in the past decade on new buildings—practically rivaling what much larger museums in New York and San Francisco have expended for new construction and renovation projects in that same time period. The Hamilton Building, completed in 2006, cost $100 million. And just two years ago, DAM moved its administration offices into a new $12 million building on the campus.

Earlier this month, Josephine Minutillo reported on the plans by Denver Art Museum, for an $150 Million upgrade and addition to it's Gio Ponti building.

China may dam its only free-flowing river left

2016-02-04T13:07:00-05:00

...the Nu [River is] the last remaining major watershed in China without a dam. For years, though, the local government has planned to build a series dams along the Nu, too. Entire villages have already been relocated to make way. If the dams are built, China’s last free-flowing river will turn into a series of cascading lakes.

“It’s a uniquely Chinese phenomenon,” smiled Fan. “A local government sets up an investment company, attracts investors, approves and builds its own projects with developers. All of them make enormous profits. They claim this helps alleviate poverty, but it only causes common people more problems.”

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