emplica formwork repair: June 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Millau Bridge, highest bridge in the world

watch this slidesho of the progress of the construction. I havent been there yet personally but i will make sure that i see this bridge very soon.

Öresund Bridge - connecting scandinavia with the european mainland

Impressive and beautiful every time i travel this bridge. Please read the full information about the project, which was finished in 2000, at this project website.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Björvika immersed Tunnel in Oslo, Norway

I am always fascinated by construction that is done under abnormal conditions. This project has been one of them. A public traffic tunnel immersed into the harbour of Oslo to reduce traffic through town.
This Website explains the works pretty well. Below it are some Videos about the Tunnel. It may not be the most beautiful concrete object ever built and it is not a piece of art in the classic sence. But it is truly some engineering artwork.

NGI (Norwegian geotchnical Institute)

Video of sinking the concrete Tubes:

Video of the finalized tunnel:

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Concrete Canoe Competition

The best way to learn is by having fun while you do it. I am sure the students who took part in the 2010 National Concrete Canoe Competition at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo had a lot of fun creating the canoes and racing them.

The Host school CalPoly won the Competition with their 170 pound beauty "Amazona".

Here is a link to the UCLA concrete canoe student group with decent images and a log of their construction process.

Here is a nice time-lapse video of the casting of a concrete canoe of the University of Illinois Concrete Canoe Team.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Construction Outlook 2020

Today’s global construction market is worth an estimated $7.5 trillion. By 2020, the global construction market will be worth an estimated $12.7 trillion – 70% growth.

Emerging construction markets in Asia-Pacific will grow by an estimated 125% between 2009 and 2020.

China will overtake the US as the largest construction market globally by 2018 and by 2020 the construction market in China will be worth an estimated $2.4 trillion.

India will overtake Japan by 2020 to become the third largest global construction market.

The world’s top ten construction markets by size today will change over the next decade as growth in emerging markets such as BRIC countries outpace developed countries.

read and purchase all of the report here at: http://www.globalconstruction2020.com/

Not only concrete needed for breathtaking architecture

Unfortunately the website is only in french and german, but the images will speak for themselves. I was there this april and i can only recommend visiting this beautiful spot right above zermatt, across the matterhon.

Please go to the website here:

http://www.neuemonterosahuette.ch/film1.php

and here

http://www.neuemonterosahuette.ch/340_realisierung.php

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Look at this!

Amazing structure.
Direct full link to info here:

image courtesy of www.architeria.com

Formwork basics

For all of you valued readers who are new to the formwork industry, here are some links to basic info on what formwork really is:

wikipedia (Don't expect too much here, but its ok for a start)

buildersbill, this one here is especially graphic

i will try and find more for you.

emplica

Amazing piece of formwork-work

each floor of "aqua" in chicago had a different formwork and a different concrete pour. beauty has its prize.

http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/913/Aqua.php

Architectural gems on hold because of recession

Due to the recession, a lot of fantastically designed structures have been put on hold. we can only hope that they will be built in the near future. CNN has put together a little slideshow of the planned buildings here.

Image courtesy www.independent.co.uk

Monday, June 21, 2010

More images of produce

i took some more pictures in the studio yesterday to fill the future website and

brochure. here they are:

Structurae

This website contains informations and images of thousands of structures from ancient time to today.
Highly recommendable, click here.
http://en.structurae.de/index.cfm

Another very informative website is this one.
http://www.greatbuildings.com

Sunday, June 20, 2010

How Concrete is made

www.cement.org is the website of the portland cement association of the US. They have some nice basic infos on concrete and cement for people that want to know what concrete is on a easy to understand level. have a look here:

Friday, June 18, 2010

Modern Forest Harvesting

I want one of these babies!

How Plywood is made

Here for the interested reader a nice little video on how plywood is made. OK, its not birch, but the principle is basically the same.

information material on global softwood industry .

Just found this interesting website of the finnish forestry industry. Lots of interesting presentations and pdfs for free download.
Finland exports about 60% of its forestry products. A lot of that goes into formwork...

The Indian Institute of Technology in Madras

Have put a lot of lectures about concrete construction onto the tube. you can find them from here.

or just watch the video here:

Nice images of concrete structures on Flickr.

This group on Flickr has devoted themselves to images of concrete architecture. Some quite nice images.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Zürich vs. Dubai

Not only in Dubai people are trying to reach the sky. we have our own big project here in Zürich: the Prime Tower. With breathtaking 126m height the tallest building in Switzerland!!!
Compare this to the Burj al khalifa in Dubai with just 690 meter more...

photos:
www.hochparterre-schweiz.ch,
www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com

After 30 years of construction, a bridge will hopefully be finished soon, spanning 720 meter over a river in Peru.

Well, there is always potential for improvement...
read the article here.

Football World Championship & Construction

When i was in Cape Town in may 2009, i was able to have a look at the Greenpoint Stadium there since my client was one of the major formwork suppliers for the construction firms.
KHL news have covered the formwork part in a little article here.

Concrete Centre UK

for all those interested in the UKs concrete industry, this Website might be helping to get more info about it.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

How Plywood is produced

for all who ever wondered how plywood is produced. Here i found a website that shows it quite nicely.

Wonderful Blog about concrete

I found a lot of funny and useful information about the tough life of concrete workers in this blog.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Pictures of the Burj al khalifa in this Blog

There is a blog, that covers the worlds tallest skyscarper's construction history:
http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/photos.html

Blog for concrete construction

interesting blog about fair faced concrete...

with an extensive list of free downloadable books for concrete building management.

testing the exact measurement of plicafix with stencil

Out of every production charge, we test a few hundred plicafix' for the precision of measurement. We allow a maximum tolerance of 2/100th of a milimeter.

The stencil in this image was milled by a company that usually produces parts for spacecraft. Just to be sure we get a very high quality...

another view of the emplica starter kit

images of the emplica starter kit

concrete links 1

American concrete institute

architecture records on www.construction.com

Production

the drill bits have now been produced and are being tested extensively. Lots of dust here...

River City Construction- Concrete Pour 1-08

Monday, June 14, 2010

Sliding formwork full video - Beremend 2007

marketing texts and images

Today developing website contents and other marketing material...

social media

starting all the social media today to give it a jump in marketing. so keep an eye on facebook, youtube and this blog. and of course our main website.

www.emplica.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com look for the page for emplica

and of course: www.emplica.com (going live July 2010)

starting up

Having found a new office and workshop, i am getting where i need to be. Now only the website and a few minor speedbumps ahead. looking forward to good business soon.