What Went Up is Going Down, Down, Down

I'm not talking about the stock market...

I'm talking about demolition of buildings. Here's a nice video. See if you can notice anything different about this kind of demolition...



Hmm... must be a cultural thing. Americans go for the big razzle-dazzle fireworks of a building implosion. The above are the Japanese. Quiet, controlled, down-she-goes floor-at-a-time demolition. The old saying is "you are what you eat". I would say "you are what your culture shapes you to be".

The above video was taken from pinktentacle.com which explains the demolition:

Unlike conventional demolition that begins at the top of the building, Kajima’s new method starts at the bottom. As each floor is demolished, the support columns are cut and replaced with giant computer-controlled jacks, which slowly lower the entire building one floor at a time. The process is repeated for each successive floor until the entire building is gone.

Kajima informally calls this the daruma-otoshi method, after the old Japanese game consisting of a daruma doll made of stacked pieces that players knock out one by one without toppling the doll.

Go to the above site to get more details plus view the demo that visually compares this technique to daruma-otoshi.