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Office workers critique a construction crew trying to corral a runaway concrete buffing machine. This really, really needs some Yakety Sax. -via Buzzfeed
Just a concept now (although one that can be demonstrated), buildings of the future might be put together by flying robots. Which sounds like a great idea, but I’d still want a real human building inspector! -via Geeks Are Sexy
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, on the planet Endor, under the forest canopy, lies a village made of chocolate, breakfast cereal, and gingerbread! And don’t look now, but there’s a Death Star lurking above. The Canadian baker who blogs under the name The Infinite Yums built this Ewok Village for a charity auction. The post about it has the building process and plenty of pictures of the details. Link -via Boing Boing
Remember the video of the impossible waterfall? Even after you saw how it was done, you were still impressed. Now Instructables has step-by-step instructions for you to make your own 3D version of the famous illusion! It’s not exactly simple, but it can be done. And if you can pull it off, you’ll flummox everyone who sees it. Link -via Boing Boing
The Bregenz Festival brings opera to the shores of Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria in July and August. They are now building the stage on the lake front, which is, as you can see, quite an enterprise. See more pictures of this fantastic stage and its meaning at Kuriositas. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Kecko)
Construction Plate – $14.95 and Construction Utensil Set – $19.95
Got a fussy eater? Make mealtime fun with the Construction Plate and Utensil Set from the NeatoShop.
The plate, which comes complete with ramps and breaks to separate food into groupings, looks like a construction zone. It is specially designed to work with a set of Front Loader Spoon, Fork Lift Fork, and Bulldozer Pusher (to make it easy to gather food and load it onto the fork and spoon).
Your tot will love dinnertime now! Links: Construction Plate and Construction Utensil Set (sold separately) | More Mealtime Fun
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The estate at Witley Park in Britain has been a private home and a public facility at different times. What is visible above ground is nice enough, but the secret underground and underwater construction is a treasure. Deep passages lead to the rumored “ballroom under the lake”, which, as it turns out, was originally built as a billiard room, but it wasn’t the only glassed-in room. Guests can watch fish swim around them -or they could at one time or another. Link -via Metafilter
Also see: more pictures at Flickr. Link
A new power plant in Switzerland will be situated up in the Alps. Construction requires huge excavator trucks, but there is no road to the site. What to do? Oh, there’s a cable! It must be pretty strong, because that’s how they are transporting the heavy equipment. See more pictures at Biglorryblog. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
Amazing, indeed. The picture on the left is dated 3/11. The picture on the right is dated 3/15. Meanwhile, a stretch of highway near my home was repaved in only 18 months. If you can read this post in Japanese, maybe you could give us more details. Link -via reddit
These two picture of the Bund in Shanghai show the growth of that part of the city in just the last twenty years. Yes, although it may remind you of an early 20th-century photograph, the top picture was taken in 1990. The bottom picture was taken in 2010. According to a comment from a Shanghai redditor, this is an accurate depiction of the tremendous construction since then. Link
Here is a rare video of the Titanic under construction at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. Construction, funded by J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Co., began in March, 1909.
Via Open Culture
Steakhouse Maloney and Porcelli had a problem: construction across the street is loud, an eyesore, and going on for far too long. So to solve the problem, they came up with an innovative solution: offering free steaks and open bar events for workers if they met construction deadlines. The result? It’s working! Construction has sped up measurably, so that Maloney and Porcelli will have their investment returned in the form of a more sightly block.
If the project is completed by its November completion date, workers only will receive a free steak dinner in the private dining space in the upstairs of the restaurant.
“As fun as it is to have construction out in front, we want it gone as soon as it’s possible,” said Allison Good, a spokeswoman for the restaurant. “It’s one of those things that New Yorkers dread but this is something that’s kind of fun and festive. You set timetables and it’s great to stick with it.”
The “Maloney & Porcelli Construction Club” includes its own website, complete with streaming video of the construction and a countdown to the first open bar on June 18 — provided crews complete the excavation of foundations by June 10.
As an advertising stunt, this project is priceless. Link to story. Link to website. – via gothamist
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Castle restorer Michel Guyot (previously at Neatorama) is heading a project to build a medieval fortress in … Arkansas!
Thirty masons, carpenters and stone carvers authentically dressed, will work all year round for twenty years, the time required to build a fortress in the Middle Ages. Imagine a place where you leave behind our technically advanced society to hear the clang of hammers on chisels as stones are being carved, and to hear snorting cart-horses pulling heavy stones on creaking wooden wagons. The blacksmith, the rope maker, the woodcutter will work right in front of you as they practise medieval techniques of construction.
The Ozark Medieval Fortress is now open for tours. Groups rates are available. Link -via Metafilter
Hayley is a Golden Retriever who lives in Mankato, Minnesota. Her master is Max DeMars of DeMars Construction. Hayley likes to be with Max and his crew, so much that she will climb a ladder to join them on upper floors and roofs under construction!
Since she was a pup, Hayley, now 10 years old, follows the crew wherever they go.
“One day we were up on the roof and there she was,” explained DeMars. “Saying what about me.”
After hundreds of jobs over the years, she’s got a pretty good handle on climbing up the ladder, even when nobody else is up on the roof.
Hayley’s fame has spread since a neighbor called police about a dog on a roof. Link -via Arbroath
Popular Mechanics tracked down the stories of the longest, deepest, most expensive, and weirdest tunnels ever built. They all have interesting stories behind them, and some have innovative features, such as the 15-mile-long Laerdal Tunnel in Norway.
Driving through a windowless tunnel for 20 minutes can get a bit monotonous, so a team of psychologists and engineers focused on retaining driver concentration. “The psychological reaction of a person in a tunnel is very important … it makes the difference between people accepting the facility or simply just avoiding it,” says Youssef Hashash, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois, who has worked on 10 different tunnel projects. “Given the length of this tunnel, you need a carefully designed environment and lighting system.” Some solutions used in the Laerdal tunnel include bright blue lights and subtle curves that keep drivers engaged. Most important, though, is the fact that the tunnel is divided into several different sections, breaking up the drive and creating the impression that commuters are traveling through a handful of smaller tunnels.
Link -via Unique Daily
It’s hard not to love this fantastic time lapse footage of Disneyland’s original construction.
Rare and unseen footage of Disneyland’s construction narrated by Imagineers. Includes some amazing new footage of Walt Disney walking the site before construction even started and some never-before-seen timelapse footage of the park from groundbreaking until opening day. This film was on the way to deep storage and was found by a curious employee, otherwise there’s a good chance we’d never get to see this.
Thank goodness that curiosity doesn’t kill the Disney employee or we would have all missed out on this great find.
Link Via Boing Boing
You don’t want to be around when a high-rise apartment building falls over! The unfinished 13-story building in Shanghai toppled Saturday morning and killed a 28-year-old worker.
“It was just like an earthquake,” witness Zhang Supong told China Daily.
Construction of the building has been halted pending an investigation of the collapse, including reports that cracks had appeared Friday on a flood prevention bank near the apartment building, Xinhua reported.
Link to story. Link to pictures. -via J-Walk Blog
A deviant artist nicknamed ULiveandYouBurn turned roadside traffic safety barrels into monsters and alligators, but is it art or vandalism?
Sometimes there’s a fine line between art and vandalism. Blurring that line is Raleigh, North Carolina-based ULiveandYouBurn (nickname used to protect his identity). Part Urban Explorer, part fine-art photographer and social critic, ULiveandYouBurn is constantly pushing the boundaries of acceptable art.
As an Urban Explorer, he’s traveled into many closed-off areas including construction sites, abandoned buildings, and mine shafts, and he’s climbed his share of dizzying construction cranes.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by StigNordas.
Children who receive treatment for cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston are receiving a special treat while construction goes on outside. Children write their names on sheets of paper and tape them to the window. Then ironworkers erecting the new Yawkey Center for Cancer Care paint the names on steel beams and hoist them into place.
The building’s steel skeleton is now a brightly colored, seven-story monument to scores of children receiving treatment at the clinic – Lia, Alex, and Sam; Taylor, Izzy, and Danny. For the young cancer patients, who press their noses to the glass to watch new names added every day, the steel and spray-paint tribute has given them a few moments of joy and a towering symbol of hope.
A similar project was carried out in 1996 when the Smith Research Laboratories were built. A movie was made at that time to raise money for The Jimmy Fund.
Yesterday, crawling on their stomachs in the bitter cold and whipping winds, the ironworkers looked down at the latest batch of names posted in the walkway window. Looking up at them were Kristen and her sisters, Cathryn, 5, and Hannah, 3, who have been accompanying her to chemotherapy. They pointed as the ironworkers painted the girls’ names onto the side of a 4-ton I-beam and hoisted it on to the seventh floor.
“She’ll always be a piece of this building, which is a good feeling to have,” Elizabeth Hoenshell said, holding Kristen. “They don’t have to do this, the guys. They could just do their job and do a good job at it and give us a building that we can get treatment at, but they go the extra step and that’s huge.”
Link to story. Link to photo gallery. -via Metafilter
See a video from the earlier project, but have your hankie ready. Link
(image credit: David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)
Ever wonder how to make the construction light signs change their text? Now you can with these handy instructions:
“It will ask you for a password. Try “DOTS”, the default password.
In all likelihood, the crew will not have changed it. However if they did, never fear. Hold “Control” and “Shift” and while holding, enter “DIPY”. This will reset the sign and reset the password to “DOTS” in the process. You’re in”
Am I the only one that thinks maybe, just maybe, these things should be a little harder to change? They usually are protected with a tiny lock, and sometimes that’s not even on there. What if the sign above was trying to warn the whole road was blocked and people laughed and kept driving 65?
Link Via BB Gadgets
Recycled paper tubes aren’t just useful for holding architectural blueprints. They can be molded into load-bearing columns, bent into trusses and rapidly assembled, and can be made waterproof and fire resistant. Because paper tubes are available in various thickness and diameters, they can be added to a structure to support more weight as necessary. Ban has said he hopes to build structures a few stories high.
The work is being done by Japanese and Chinese students working together. See pictures of the process, and a completed school at Treehugger. Link -Thanks, Chris Tackett!
