It's the world's longest sea-crossing bridge: 55 kilometres of motorway spans the Pearl River Estuary in the South China Sea before dipping into an undersea tunnel. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has today officially opened the gigantic infrastructure linking Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. A colossal engineering structure, involving the Bouygues Construction subsidiaries Bouygues Travaux Publics, Dragages Hong Kong and VSL for the construction of a 9.4-kilometre section.
A bridge of strategic importance 5714 prefabricated segments of 250 different types, laid down at the rate of 18 per day, shaft grouted friction piling method to cope with difficult ground conditions – a technical first in Hong Kong –, sea-based installations and specific logistical arrangements to maintain the waterways throughout the duration of the works... Some notable innovations for the construction of this extraordinary bridge structure. It is now possible to reach Hong Kong from the main cities of the Pearl River delta in 30 minutes, compared with four hours by land and one hour by boat. A real basis for stimulating commercial ties between the two sides of the crossing.
Construction robotics holds no secrets for Thomas Bock, professor at Munich University of Technology, author of more than 500 articles in academic journals, creator of the first European Commission on Construction Robotics, co-founder and director of the IAARC, holder of the DFG Seibold Award, and adviser to governments and academies around the world. He's telling us about it!
“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” These famous words from Lavoisier became the motto of Brézillon which opened a contaminated soil transit, sorting and recovery platform in February.
In our town and cities, where vegetation is becoming increasingly scarce, how can we absorb carbon dioxide, claimed by scientists to be the number one cause of climate change? Imagine a material that could grow like trees by absorbing carbon dioxide!
Urban overheating is becoming a recurring phenomenon, resulting from the cumulative effect of climate change and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. Climate change is leading to an increase in the intensity and duration of heat waves (hot air masses causing high temperatures for several consecutive days) in different parts of the world. These meteorological phenomena themselves reinforce the UHI, a climatic effect causing a difference in temperature between the centre of urban areas and outlying or natural areas, which can be greater than 10 °C during heat waves. The effect is even more pronounced at night, when the heat stored by artificialised land and buildings is released into the air, keeping the temperature high. Faced with the various consequences (social, environmental, economic) and climate projections, local and regional authorities are now faced with the need to adapt their cities in order to combat this phenomenon. Below is an overview of the challenges and solutions.
Isabelle Grillaud, R&D Innovation manager at Construction Privée, presents the concept of electricity and control using PoE (Power over Ethernet). The concept recently won the innovation competition.
What if tomorrow we lived in cities that floated on the sea? It’s an idea that is gaining ground through a UN-supported initiative. But is it a maritime pipe dream?
This is an entirely new approach to construction, a more ethical and sustainable one. It involves predicting changes in usage, and the reversibility of a building after construction The aim is to be able to change the building's purpose easily to accompany changes in lifestyle and in the regions themselves.
Sharing information so that all players on the project have a single vision of the construction. Welcome to the BIM age! See the innovative use we make of BIM on one of our sites. Today, we are in Églantines, in Morges (Switzerland), by Losinger Marazzi.
Bouygues Construction asked the My Serious Game agency to launch an innovative web series on Bouygues Construction's new value system. An increasingly significant role within companies has been given to creating a shared vision based on shared values and corporate culture.
