the majority of people on earth take part in one of these activities on a daily basis so imagine the potential when you think that all of these actions produce energy which, in conjunction with technology already available, can be harnessed and used as a source with which to power the tv at your gym, power the streetlights as you drive, power subway ticket machines as you walk towards them or power a nightclub’s sound system as you dance. all of these examples have been realised to date, successfully.

admittedly it’s early days and to implement these technologies on a wide scale would take years but it’s an ingenious concept and one which would guarantee sustainable sources of energy for as long as we keep on moving.

1. the bridge

this is the sakura bridge in tokyo, one of many bridges on the area’s shuto expressway. what makes the bridge unique however is the fact that the vibrations caused by vehicles crossing the structure are converted by way of the piezo effect (the ability for some materials, more often than not crystals, to produce electricity as a result of mechanical pressure) and subsequently used to generate the electricity needed to illuminate the bridge. the metropolitan expressway company aim to utilise this technology across the entire network of roads, eventually negating the need for any other kind of external power source when lighting the roads.

2. the nightclub

the sustainable dance club premiered its electricity generating dancefloor in rotterdam, october 2006 and instantly recieved worldwide praise. using a dance floor embedded with piezoelectric elements enabled the organisers to harness the collective energy of everyone who stepped foot on it and divert the converted electricity to the club’s sound and lighting systems. understandably, initial results weren’t mind-blowing but as the technology develops so will the electrical output. the long-term plan is to install these floors in clubs worldwide.

3. the train station

earlier this year at tokyo station, a second experiment was carried out by east japan railway company in order to discover just how much electricity could be produced by the thousands of commuters passing through the building on a daily basis. from january through to march a power-generating floor, embedded with piezoelectric elements, was installed at the yaesu north exit’s ticket gates, concourse and stairs and the experiment was a success. the next aim is to install these floors ticket gates station-wide, the resultant electricity used to power all automatic ticket gates, ticket machines and electric displays.

4. the gym

and finally, the place we all love to avoid. last year a hong kong branch of california fitness called in inventor lucien gambarota to modify some of some of its cardio machines using the trusty old dynamo. these adapted machines were then hooked up to the gym’s lighting system, the result being a well-lit room as long as a serious amount of effort was made. following this trial, as you’ll hear on the video, plans are apparently afoot to introduce these modifications on a company-wide scale.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

the enormous steel ball you see in the photos (and the incredible video below) is the world’s largest ‘tuned mass damper’ and sits near the top of the world’s largest completed skyscraper on earth, taipei 101 in taiwan. the idea behind a tuned mass damper is quite simple: as a building sways (resulting from high winds, earthquakes etc), its tuned mass damper, essentially a finely tuned and ridiculously heavy pendulum, will move in opposition to the structure’s oscillations and minimise any movement. if that makes no sense, watch the crude gif below.

due to both the immense size of taipei 101 and the fact that it sits just over 600ft from a major fault line, engineers had no choice but to install one of this size at a cost of $4m. too heavy to be lifted by crane, the damper was assembled on site and hangs through 4 floors of the skyscraper. it can reduce the building’s movement by up to 40%.

image sources: 1, 2, 3

image source: wikipedia

now for an incredible video. on may 12th, as the horrendous earthquake occurred in china’s sichuan province, tremors were felt for miles, including in taipei 101. youtube user phuaalvin was in the building at the time and said that as the building started to shake, dozens of people ran to the damper to watch it in action. here’s the video he took…

sources: 1, 2

this has to be one of the smartest ideas i’ve seen in a long time.

last year a mr peng yu-lun devised a system which, when implemented at mrt stations, will negate the need for trains to stop or decelerate at all when approaching the station itself. the idea, as you’ll see in the video below, is to have a seperate designated carriage for people wishing to board or alight the train which waits at the platform. the carriage then attaches to the train as it passes underneath and eventually rests on the roof until the next stop approaches and the carriage detatches and comes to a halt. have a look at the clip.

one advantage that immediately springs to mind is a presumably huge energy saving due to the fact that the main train would no longer have to stop and start on a regular basis.

i came across this video by complete mistake today on a chinese version of youtube and subsequently spent what seemed like a lifetime trying to find related information that wasn’t in taiwanese. if anyone can translate the audio i’d be grateful. the only written info i could find was from the ‘taiwan headlines’ website, which can be read here.

just when you think you’ve seen every type of bridge possible.

this is the sky bridge in langkawi, malaysia, a stunning cable-stayed bridge which actually curves around the single support column from which it’s suspended, 687 metres above sea level. completed in october 2004, the structure relies on an 87 metre high support column to hold the weight of the deck, this weight distributed through 8 load balancing cables attached to its head.

whilst the upsides are incredible views and a testament to engineering brilliance, the downside for gephyrophobiacs is that you’re seemingly placing all your trust in a single, relatively thin lattice tower which also happens to be standing at an angle. of course this is essential for the bridge to stay upright (a quality i always look for in a bridge) but visually it couldn’t be more frightening.

all in all, a unique feat of engineering.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

photo source: ian iong

approximately 3′000 years ago the people of cordillera took on one of mankind’s most impressive landscape modification projects in order to farm effectively on the surrounding mountainsides and slowly transform the region into what some now call the eighth wonder of the world. due to the sheer scale of this farming system it’s hard to disagree: the rice terraces of the philippine cordilleras, if laid out end to end, would stretch halfway round the globe. if this ingenious feat had been accomplished in recent times the clearly enormous task would have seemed more than impressive, however the fact that it was completed thousands of years ago without the use of modern apparatus and machinery takes the terraces and integrated irrigation systems to a whole new level.

photo source: dudz torres

the idea behind field terracing is simple and something not unique to the philippines: carve horizontal ledges into hills, essentially creating thousands of small walled fields from base to peak in which to grow crops and retain much needed water. however, in the cordilleras region this has been applied to an area on an elsewhere unseen scale: approximately 10′360 square kilometres. entire mountains, sometimes thousands of feet high, sculpted like blocks of wood. that itself is incredible. then you have the irrigation system: the natural streams and rivers of each terraced mountain and its forests have been diverted using a huge and complex arrangement of canals, sluices and taps, the same water is then pushed to the highest terraces using miles of wooden piping. when the terraces fill up they overflow and start to fill the terraced field below, and the cycle continues until the entire mini-waterfall covered mountain is carrying an immense weight of water.

photo source: ian iong

the rice terraces are, understandably, a huge tourist attraction and have attracted attention and money from across the world. however the tourism is also thought to be responsible for the start of what could be a slow death of the terraces for a couple of reasons. firstly, the new generation of locals see the hospitality industry created by the terraces as a far more appealing line of work than the constant farming and attention needed to sustain the terraces themselves. secondly, water isn’t as readily available as in the past due to the effects of an earthquake in 1990 and the new demand for water itself from the tourist industry.

for that reason unesco has placed the terraces on a list of world heritage sites it believes to be ‘in danger’ in hope of starting a successful rehabilitation of the world’s most incredible agricultural engineering system.

sources: 1, 2, 3

the enormous 34m ( not ft as i previously put. excuse my ignorance) diameter shiny ball pictured above goes by the name of ‘la géode’. this stunning metallic structure houses a 1000m² hemispheric imax screen at the ‘cité des sciences et de l’industrie’ in paris. it was designed in 1983 by french architect adrien fainsilber and then realised by engineer gérard chamaillou. it’s apparently one of the largest geodesic domes on earth.

seeing this beauty brings to mind what must surely be the most aesthetically incredible planetarium in the world: l’hemisfèric in valencia…

photo sources: (clockwise from top) 1, 2, 3

known by many as ‘the eye of knowledge’, l’hemisfèric planetarium was the first building to be finished as part of valencia’s city of arts and science, a complex designed by super-architect santiago calatrava who is the genius also responsible for, amongst others, the turning torso in sweden and chicago’s upcoming supertall skyscraper, the chicago spire. ‘the eye’ even blinks (albeit quite slowly) by way of hydraulics to reveal the spherical planetarium inside, the reflection of this in the surrounding pool of water cleverly resulting in the illusion you see above.

photo source

firstly, the fact that they exist at all was news to me. i naively assumed that avalanches of any substance were pretty much uncontrollable on our part (unless explosives are used), especially when the relatively miniscule and fragile community you’re attempting to defend sits at the base of the mountain in question. so the thought of humans battling angry mountains the world over using fences and angled walls was always going to be a winner for me. secondly, they look great. i’m a sucker for enormous man-made structures anyway and these beasts are fairly huge, the dams especially as they sometimes span the width of entire villages.

so, here a 3 different types of structure actively being used in various regions in the defense against rapid walls of snow. i’m not even going to pretend to be knowledgeable about the subject so if you want any more depth i suggest you follow the links after these photos.

the deflecting dam

deflecting dams exist with one objective in mind: to divert the flow of an oncoming avalanche away from the populated area beneath the shifting snow. this is done using angled walls and one of the most successful examples can be found at flateyri in iceland (see above) where a triangular deflecting dam can be clearly seen above the village. the dam was built following a fatal avalanche in 1995 and since its construction the dam has successfully diverted at least 2 more large avalanches.

the catching dam

in areas where a diversion isn’t possible you will often find a catching dam, a structure built purely to stop an avalanche in its tracks, hopefully preventing any major movement beyond that point. the main part of a catching dam is the long, curved wall immediately above the community. further up you’ll sometimes find a series of huge earth mounds, strategically placed in order to suck some energy from the flow before it hits the main wall and renders it useless. the photos above show the catching dam protecting drangagil, also in iceland.

below is video of a simulation of the taconnaz catching dam in action, the yellow areas being the part of the flow with highest energy…

supporting structures

steel supporting structures are the most common type of avalanche control system and can be found at the top of avalanche-prone mountains. huge horizontal lines of (usually) steel angled supports are built into the side of avalanche starting zones for a number of reasons: 1. to give support to the snow, therefore reducing the likelihood of an avalanche in the first place, 2. to remove the momentum of any small avalanches, 3. to prevent ’slab formation’ by divding the snow into sections.

for more info, check out the source links below. you can also go here to read parts of the extremely interesting and useful (if you live or holiday amongst unstable mountains) ‘avalanche handbook’ - not all of it is readable through google books but it can be bought through amazon here.

sources: 1, 2, 3 (pdf), 4

here’s an incredible piece of wartime engineering - the grand shaft in dover. built between 1806 and 1809 during the napoleonic wars, this triple spiral staircase was used as a rapid route for soldiers making their way from the clifftop barracks to the town of dover and its harbour below. without it the troops had to navigate badly maintained winding roads from top to bottom.

a huge 140ft shaft was dug into the ground to house the 3 intertwined staircases, the inner shaft peppered with windows to ensure light from above reached the soldiers running down to possible battle. engineer william twiss was adamant that a single staircase wouldn’t provide a big enough route down for a huge volume of people so he wrapped 3 stairways around each other, the 3 exit points meeting at the bottom where a tunnel leads to the town of dover.

photo sources, clockwise from top: whibs, jelltecks and conundrum37

apparently at one point, after the wars had subsided and the shaft wasn’t needed by troops, each of the 3 staircases was only to be used by certain people, as pointed out by the sign at the top of each…

1. officers and their ladies

2. sergeants and their wives

3. soldiers and their women

below is the top of the grand shaft as seen on google maps. here’s the direct link.

sources: 1, 2

running under the river elbe in hamburg is a beautiful tunnel like no other. this 1/2 kilometre ‘technical marvel’, known as the ‘old river elbe tunnel’, was built in 1911, sits 24 metres below the river and connects central hamburg with the shipyard island of steinwerder. what makes the tunnel unique are the entry points on each side of the river: rather than just driving straight into the tunnel, vehicles enter a freight elevator which slowly descends to the tunnel below, the tunnel then taking traffic to a similar elevator on the opposite side which lifts them back to ground level.

[update] thanks to ‘tobi g’ for sending this elbe tunnel ticket.

the tunnel is still used to a lesser extent today by pedestrians, cyclists and cars but is now considered more a tourist attraction due to it’s quirky nature.

sources: 1, 2

(thanks to adam for the info & pics)

[edit: it seems these photos are from airliners.net. click on the pics to go to the relevant source]