6 Unusual Construction Builds That Push The Limits

Pushing the limits has become the norm, especially when it comes to the new construction builts that are cropping up all over the world. No matter the state of the earth, engineers, architects, and contractors always accepts the challenge and seems to make it work.

Founded by Fred Mill’s, TheB1M.com website was created as a place to view the best construction videos from all over the globe. B1M exposes new technologies, complex projects, and talent that would otherwise never be revealed.

So, I’ve gone through B1M’s large database of construction videos and found 6 unusual construction & engineering videos that will leave you in awe and saying, “wait, that’s unheard of, how did they do that!?”.

1. A Year-Round Ice Hotel

A small town in Northern Sweden, Jukkasjarvi is now known as the home to the world’s largest ice hotel. How is that possible you may be wondering? Well, the construct would usually melt each Spring but with some innovative discoveries, the ice hotel can now remain constant.

Located on the Torne River, approx. 200 KM north of the Artic Circle – the river would freeze every winter and a 5,500 square metre ice hotel with 65 rooms, a church, gallery and bar would be constructed on that property with concepts from over 200 designers.

The material is referred as “snice”, a mixture of snow and ice that can reflect the sun rays in the winter to avoid melting.

2. Floating Student Housing

Located in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen the floating student housing structure was designed to assist with student population – it ranked 39th for student friendliness.

The structure was built on a hexagonal floating platform, called the Urban Rigger which hold 12 studios, communal space and roof terrace. The studios were created from stacked shipping containers with solar panels.

The Urban Rigger platform is placed on water with head pumps that extract 75% of the energy from the sea for heating and hot water.

3. Wood Wharf: Building A City In The Clouds

The Wood Wharf is in phase one if the master plan to create a building in the clouds. This structure would be in the Canary Wharf district in London. With this location being the most desirable for office and retail space, to meet this demand, a new district is planned to be created within a city.

With the land being under water, the contractors would need to install a sheet pile wall into the riverbed to be able to fill it with material. The first phase of the skyscraper includes 12 different buildings with utilities connected – this making it a complex project.

Using digital building information modelling software and new technology will help the team turn this master plan into a reality.

4. Shanghai Under-Water Quarry Hotel

Shanghai is well-known for some of the tallest architecture. Located in the Sheshan Mountain Range, the Quarry hotel was created a destination to rival the resorts of Singapore and Dubai.

Hugging the cliff walls and becoming one with the landscape the hotel’s two highest floors are overseeing the top of the pit and the two lowest levels are in a 10-metre deep aquarium.

This resort style hotel was positioned in the cliff walls as the rocks help regulate the internal temperature of the hotel while the hotel is partially powered by geothermal energy and photovoltaics.

With more than 5,000 architects, engineers, designers and construction workers, this unique structure was brought to reality.

5. Africa’s City In The Sea

Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and is expected to become the largest city in the world by 2100 and be home to over 88 million people. Wanting Lagos to become the economic centre of West Africa, Lagos must reclaim its land from the Atlantic Ocean. The “Eko Atlantic” scheme will need to reclaim 10 square kilometres of land from The Atlantic Ocean and extend to more than two kilometres offshore.

This land is planned to be the host of 10 new city districts with more than 250,000 residents.

To make sure this structure stands strong in storms, engineers constructed what they call the “Great Wall of Lagos” which consist of 8 kilometres long, 45-metre wide structure that rises 18-metres from the ocean floor.
Started in 2008, the city in the sea is to date, 50% complete in 2019.

6. Bjarke Ingels’ Lego House

Located in Billund, Denmark the LEGO House was built with 21 blocks, stacked to a form a loose, 75-foot high pyramid. The LEGO House was constructed in the town where LEGO was first founded in 1932 and expects 250,000 visitors each year.

The LEGO House was built using steel frames, in white ceramic tiles which mimics the appearance of bricks.

Within the LEGO House, there are 13 galleries, interactive exhibitions, viewing platforms, public playground, colourful roof terrace, and activities for visitors that enter this structure that was created with 25 million bricks used in making the exhibitions inside the LEOG House through modular-block creativity.

With new building innovations, technology, construction applications, and software, constructing unique and over the top architectures has become possible.

There will always be challenges, but with today’s technology and future innovations, these challenges can easily be resolved to create stunning and very distinctive structures.

What do you think of these impressive architectures? Do you have any favourite out of the box construction and engineering videos?

Leave a comment below and let us know.