Assignment OF The Day: Engineering♥

Oceandome in Japan

Here's another nice piece of engineering and construction. This time the locate is JAPAN.

Here's the exterior shot of the building. Note the surrounding area... mountains, sea shore, golf course, residential area.

What do you think is inside this building?

Imagine a beach where the sky is always blue, it's never too hot or cold, the water isn't filled with salt and pollution, and the surf is always perfect - welcome to Ocean Dome, the world's only indoor beach.

Ocean Dome has its own flame-spitting volcano, crushed white marble "sand", and it also boasts the world's largest retractable roof, providing a permanently blue sky. Temperature, wind and humidity are closely controlled to provide an ultra-safe "sea-side" experience. Every hour, the volcano erupts and the hi-tech wave machines start up, starting a few minutes of sanitized surfing. Entrance cost is US $50 per person, which seems especially expensive given that there is a free, natural beach only 300 meters away.

The roof is retractable...

so the SURF'S UP... rain or shine!

When the roof is closed...

you still get blue sky and puffy white clouds...

enjoy your holiday...

Engineering Art

Chicago - 103rd Floor

The Sears Tower is 1,450 feet (443 meters) high - 1,730 feet (520 meters) including twin antenna towers.

The Skydeck is 1,353 feet (412 meters) above the ground.

The lowest level of Sears Tower is 43 feet (13 meters) below the Franklin St. elevation.

The combined weight of the building is 222,500 tons - that's 445,000,000 lbs. or 201,849,000 kg.

The cost of building the Sears Tower was in excess of $150 million.

The Sears Tower, opened in 1973, took 3 years to build.
The building has 4.5 million gross square feet (418,064 gross square meters) of floor space.
On a clear day, you can see four states - Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Visibility from the Skydeck is approximately 40-50 miles (65 - 80 kilometers).
The average sway of the building is approximately 6 inches (152 millimeters) from true center.
The Sears Tower has approximately 16,100 bronze-tinted windows.
6 roof-mounted robotic window washing machines clean all 16,100 windows.
Sears Tower elevators operate as fast as 1,600 feet (488 meters) per minute - among the fastest in the world.
The Sears Tower contains 25,000 miles (40,223 kilometers) of electrical cable.
Approximately 43,000 miles (69,200 kilometers) of telephone cable runs through the building.
The Sears Tower was designed for more than 12,000 occupants.
Approximately 25,000 people enter the building each day.
Approximately 1.3 million tourists visit the Skydeck each year.